By Nathalie Tadena 
 

Google Inc. (GOOG) expanded its industry-leading position in the U.S. Internet search market slightly last month, while Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) share also improved, according to market researcher comScore Inc.

The rankings stayed the same across the board. Google's market share increased to 66.9% in October, up from 66.7% in September. Microsoft's share edged up to 16% from 15.9% in the prior month. Yahoo! Inc.'s (YHOO) share was unchanged at 12.2%. IAC/InterActiveCorp.'s (IACI) Ask Network saw its share slip to 3.2% from 3.5%. AOL Inc.'s (AOL) share remained steady at 1.8%.

Americans conducted 17.62 billion explicit core searches last month, up 7.8% from September. Google sites ranked first, with 11.79 billion searches, followed by Microsoft with 2.82 billion and Yahoo with 2.15 billion.

ComScore measures U.S. explicit core searches, which exclude contextual searches that don't reflect any intent by users.

Write to Nathalie Tadena at nathalie.tadena@dowjones.com

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