Google accounted for 71.16% of all US internet searches for the four weeks ending Sept. 27, 2008, a 12% year-over-year increase since the same period in 2007, according to data released by Hitwise, MarketingCharts reports.

Yahoo Search (18.06%), MSN Search (5.36%) and Ask.com (3.63%) came in second, third and fourth, respectively.

The remaining 45 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for only 1.80% of all US searches.

Search engines - led by Google - continue to be the method of choice for internet users to navigate to key industry categories:

Comparing September 2008 with September 2007: Business and Finance, Sports, Online Video and Social Networking categories showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.