Google sites remained the top US search property in August, with over 5.5 billion searches conducted.

That's 56.5 percent share, up 1.3 points from July, according to comScore's monthly qSearch analysis, which also found that the Time Warner/AOL has surpassed Ask in search queries (via MarketingCharts).

Time Warner Network was the only other core search engine property to increase share - up 0.1 points, to 4.5 percent - with 441 million searches, comScore said.

(See a chart of the comScore data here, as well as the Nielsen/NetRatings version here.)

According to comScore's recently-introduced expanded search report, the largest gains in search volume were recorded by YouTube and Craigslist, with 9.0 percent and 7.6 percent increases, respectively.

Core Search Rankings

Behind Google in August, Yahoo sites ranked second with 23.3 percent, followed by Microsoft sites (11.3 percent), Time Warner Networks (4.5 percent) and Ask Network (4.5 percent).

Nearly 5.5 billion core searches were conducted at Google sites during the month, a 1.6 percent increase in volume from July. Time Warner Network, assisted by gains at AOL, increased its query volume, with a 1.2 percent rise to 441 million searches.

Expanded Search Rankings

In the August 2007 analysis of the Top 50 properties worldwide where search activity is observed, Google led the pack with 6.8 billion searches.

Yahoo ranked second with nearly 2.5 billion searches, followed by Microsoft (1.1 billion), Time Warner Network (937 million) and Fox Interactive Media (571 million).