Google's share of the U.S. search market continues to grow, extending its lead over Yahoo and Microsoft, according to the latest comScore figures, writes CNET. That increased from 42.7 percent to 43.1 percent from March to April, and up from 36.5 percent in April 2005. Google gained market share for the ninth consecutive month.

Yahoo maintained its market share at 28.0 percent between March and April, a decrease of 2.7 percentage points from last year, according to comScore. Less than 6 percentage points separated Google's and Yahoo's respective market shares in April 2005, whereas that difference is now 15 percentage points.

Microsoft's MSN also slipped, accounting for 12.9 percent in April, down from 13.2 percent in March and 16.1 percent in April 2005.

Time Warner search (AOL) dropped to 6.9 percent from 7.6 percent in March and 9.0 percent in April 2005. Ask.com declined slightly, from 5.9 percent in March to 5.8 percent; it accounted for 6.1 percent of searches in April 2005. For the first time, MySace.com's search engine appeared in comScore's rankings, placing sixth with 0.6 percent of searches in April.

Google and Yahoo continued their dominance among toolbar searches, combining for more than 95 percent of market share in April: Google accounted for 48.0 percent; Yahoo captured 47.6 percent.