The search market in Europe is set to boom according to the latest figures from Nielsen/NetRatings, U.K.'s PCpro reports (via Search Engine Lowdown). Search activity grew 11 percent across Europe in 2004, compared with an overall growth of four percent in internet users as a whole. According to Nielsen, the number of people using search engines increased from 79 million to 88 million in Europe. France topped the list of biggest searchers with 81 percent of users as regulars searchers, followed closely by the U.K. with 80 percent. Google is by far the most popular search engine. According to Hitwise, 69 percent of users go to Google.com or .co.uk. Next is MSN with 8.4 percent and Ask Jeeves and Yahoo in a virtual tie with around 8 percent.