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Statistics are no fun if everyone agrees. Nielsen/Netratings says Google captured 48.5% of the 5.3 billion searches conducted in February. According to Nielsen’s numbers, both Google and Yahoo (at 22.5%) increased their share at the expense of MSN Search. AOL Search (6.6%) and My Way Search (2.7%) come in at numbers 4 and 5. Not making an appearance on this top 5 list is Ask.com.

5.3 billion searches were conducted in February, up from 3.8 billion during the same period last year. Nielsen attributes this growth largely to the increased number of searches per user, particularly image searches and shopping searches: “In February 2005, the average Web user ran 33.2 searches; by this February, that number had climbed to 43.1 searches, increasing 30% year over year. In contrast, the number of unique searchers increased year over year by just 6%.”