UK Internet users made an astonishing 2.2 billion visits to search engines in February according to our latest monthly data.
Last month we showed how search was increasing as an online channel with 100 million additional UK Internet visits going to search engines in January 2012 compared to January 2011. The February stats are even more impressive, with 174 million more visits going to search engines when comparing February 2012 with February 2011. The further demand on search represents an 8.7% year-on-year increase in visits and early indications for March suggest this trend is going to continue.
My colleague James Murray has put together a cool search infographic to demonstrate some of the top search stats that we see using Hitwise data. You can also find further search data in our monthly press release which includes the latest search trends.
The February data shows Google was once again the dominant player in the UK search market accounting for 91.57% of all searches made in Britain. Google’s market share of searches was up by 0.93% since January and 0.89% year-on-year.

Meanwhile Microsoft Sites led by bing were unable to build on their growth at the beginning of the year and instead their market share slipped by 0.48% this month. Yahoo! Sites and Other search engines also decreased in market share in February.
You can read more about the most recent search stats in our monthly search press release or you can follow us on Twitter for the latest trends and data.