Google had a large majority of search market share in October, accounting for 71.70% of all US online searches conducted in the four weeks ending November 1, 2008, while Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 17.74%, 5.40% and 3.53%, respectively, according to October data from Hitwise, MarketingCharts reports.

The remaining 43 search engines tracked in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool, when taken together, accounted for only 1.62% of US online searches.

Search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories. Comparing October 2008 with October 2007, the Travel, Sports, Online Video and Social Networking categories all showed double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.

Though percent change in share of traffic from search engines between October 2007 and October 2008 did not increase for all industry categeories, the percent change in share of traffic from Google grew for every industry, according to Hitwise.