Hitwise is reporting that all is once again normal with the world of search as Google garnered 71% of the total searches performed in the US in April. This is a 2 percent increase from March numbers. While bing had been showing some gains recently and giving some people hope that they would be a possible contender to Google at some point the search wannabe saw a 2 percent slip. Looking at the chart below from Hitwise it appears that if Ask.com is quickly fading into the sunset.

Other measurements of interest show literally no change in the use of longer search phrases. Bing / Microsoft search did see increase in several verticals but with their overall percentage of searches these ‘gains’ may be just as much the result of Yahoo’s decreasing presence as a search engine as it is bing’s real impact to date.

It’s important to note that while each month these numbers keep being rolled out for comparison the nature of search is undergoing radical change. Social search and the influence of social media outlets in the decision making process of consumers is rapidly impeding on what used to be the sole territory of the engines.

What the numbers need to show in the future is not so much the percentage of total searches each engine has but more so the influence of each engine as they compare to all the other ways that people are getting their information these days.

Your thoughts?