DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Google Inc. (GOOG) expanded its leading market share among U.S. Internet-search engines last month as Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Bing search engine also saw its share rise slightly, according to industry researcher comScore Inc. (SCOR). Google's U.S. market share rose 0.2 percentage point to 66.4% in February from the prior month. Microsoft's Internet-search sites' share edged up 0.1 percentage point to 15.3%. Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) sites remained in the No. 3 spot, slipping 0.3 percentage points to 13.8%. IAC/InterActiveCorp.'s (IACI) Ask.com's share remained unchanged at 3% while AOL Inc.'s (AOL) market share slipped 0.1 percentage point to 1.5%. Americans conducted 17.59 billion core search queries in February, down from 17.8 billion in January. Google again ranked first, with 11.67 billion searches, followed by Microsoft, with 2.68 billion, and Yahoo with 2.43 billion. ComScore has shifted how it reports its data after Yahoo's "contextual searches" skewed earlier results. The group measures U.S. explicit core searches, which exclude contextual searches that don't reflect any intent by users. -By Nathalie Tadena, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-3287; nathalie.tadena@dowjones.com
