By Tom Foremski

ComScore Networks' latest analysis of search engine activity was for December 2006, it showed Google gaining share, and at a faster pace than second placed Yahoo!

Google increased its lead by 0.4 share points to 47.4 percent of the total US market, compared with November 2006. Yahoo added 0.3 share points with 28.5 percent of the total. Microsoft sites were third with 10.5 percent, followed by Ask Network with 5.4 percent, and Time Warner with 4.9 percent.

Google and Yahoo gains were at the expense of Microsoft, which lost 0.5 share points, Ask, which fell by 0.1 share points, and Time Warner which lost 0.2 share points.

ComScore assembles its data from monitoring the Internet activities of more than 2m consumers.

Foremski's Take: Google's lead shows no signs of flagging. Yahoo is doing a decent job in gaining share but not enough to catch Google. Google continues to grow much faster.

Third, fourth and fifth places in search rankings are all declining. Is there a place for these and specialized search engines on the Internet? Or is it that only the top two Internet businesses in each category have the best chances to succeed?

From ComScore Networks:

* Americans conducted 6.7 billion searches online in December, up 1 percent versus November.  Annual growth rates in search query volume remained strong with a 30-percent increase since the same month a year ago.

* Google Sites led the pack with 3.2 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (1.9 billion), MSN-Microsoft (713 million), Ask Network (363 million), and Time Warner Network (335 million).