Google increased its market share of searches in the United States in May, from 67.9 percent share in April to 68.29 percent in May, Hitwise reported.

During May, Yahoo dropped from 20.28 percent to 19.95 percent and Microsoft dropped from 6.26 percent to 5.89 percent. Fourth-place Ask.com increased slightly from 4.17 percent to 4.23 percent, Hitwise said.

In the U.K., Google had 87 percent search share to Yahoo's 4.09 percent, Microsoft's 3.72 percent, and Ask.com's 3.07 percent.

Now the question is when will ASK search volume pass Microsoft?

Microsoft has unveiled a new program that awards a cashback discount to purchasers who buy online via the Live Search Engine.

This seams like a good idea. Searchers can get cash back instantly when they buy online. Microsoft AdCenter Advertisors can participate by paying Microsoft.

If executed properly this could have a changing effect on how people buy online. The only problem that I see is that it is broken. I can not get to the website, http://search.live.com/cashback/ is a broken link. So either too many people are trying it and Microsoft's systems do not scale or my IE Browser must not be working.

Regardless here are some of the programs details:

Microsoft is giving back to consumers 100 percent of the money it gets from advertisers once a sale is made. So, for now, Microsoft's plan is to benefit indirectly from the program--ideally by grabbing searchers and advertisers that are currently going to rivals.

Microsoft may at some point take a cut from the rebate.

So shop now while if you can.

Microsoft dropped its bid for Yahoo. After looking at the business and the price Microsoft decided to drop its bid for Yahoo.

This is good news for search marketers as they can choose between 3 alternatives for Internet Marketing.

Call or email us for more details.

Both mergers are in reaction to getting beat in the marketplace by a rival with better infrastructure and a better business model.

As a person that uses all three adverting tools, Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter and Yahoo Search Marketing, I can say that Google AdWords is the easiest to use. Yahoo Search Marketing Tool wont even let me turn a campaign on or off automatically and for international adverting I need to create a separate account for each country&thats too time consuming.

Microsoft AdCenter does have some cool features for geo and demographic targeting but AdCenter has been slow (As in we are adding more capacity to our servers to correct the problem) and the interface is not very intuitive.

So if Search Adverting Revenue is the barometer for the success of a Microsoft Yahoo takeover, then Google may be the winner.

Microsoft would be better off offering free contextual ads for a couple of years to get market share and save about 40 billion dollars. In addition the culture of Yahoo and Microsoft will not merge well. Yahoo is a Valley company. Most Valley companies do not like Microsoft. If a Yahoo customer really wanted Hotmail, then they would have switched a long time ago. Microsoft may force Yahoo mail and IM clients to Google. Just our thoughts from the field&stay tuned; I hear that News Corp may get into this.