Microsoft turned out to the bright star in the Web search marketing game in the third quarter compared to arch rivals Google and Yahoo, according to Web researcher AdGooroo. In its latest quarterly report, 
AdGooroo said Microsoft LiveSearch has grown its active advertiser base by almost 32% in one year. "During Q3, we measured a 19.3% increase in active first page advertisers, the biggest quarterly increase since we began measuring advertising activity in April 2007," writes AdGooroo in its blog.
The company says it recorded a 3% increase in active advertisers for Google, while ad coverage dropped to its lowest levels in August and September, adds Adgooroo.
"Finally, Yahoo appears to be staying the course while it waits for the US government to approve its ad-sharing deal with Google. We measured a 2.5% decrease in active first-page advertisers, but there were no significant changes in other metrics," reads the blog.
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A note from a reader
A reader from Twitter wrote to Microsoft Subnet to say that the above story, while true, doesn't do justice to the real numbers. "autiomaa" sent a tweet to "microsoftsubnet" saying "Those statistics don't really tell about the whole picture. Should be noted that there are quite big differences in amounts."
That's true, autiomaa. Because Microsoft's Live Search business is so much smaller than Google's, small increases in accounts will result in bigger percentage increases. Because Google's revenues are so much bigger, it's 3% increase actually represents a far larger dollar amount.
The overall point is that Microsoft is making progress in competing in search. It may not (and probably won't) ever topple Google from its perch. Google will only be toppled by its own behavior -- should it get too powerful and too evil -- or another disruptive technology. But Microsoft can create for itself quite a decent search business by being first and better at new forms of search, such as medical information. If it can grow areas of search that are not already being served (and it can do so while respecting users), then everyone wins.
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