Google fielded 5.65 billion, or 37.6 percent, of U.S. queries, placing it at the top of the heap for the second quarter, reports the E-Commerce Times, citing comScore figures. Yahoo was second, with 4.65 billion queries and 30.4 percent market share; MSN, with 2.39 billion queries and 15.6 percent; AOL/Time Warner, with 1.41 billion queries and 9.2 percent; and Ask Jeeves, with 934 million queries and 6.1 percent.

Google's market share was the largest in a quarter since comScore began compiling its search reports in December 2003.

Google's market share increased from the first quarter, when it was 35.9 percent, as did Ask Jeeves', which rose from 5.3 percent, and AOL's, from 9.1 percent. Yahoo's market share fell from 31.2 percent, and MSN's from 16.3 percent.

However, on a year-to-year basis, the query growth rate is declining for the big search engines, partly due to the "law of large numbers," and partly due to emergence of more subject-specific, "vertical" search engines.