Google accounted for a whopping 87.3 per cent of all UK searches in May, further increasing its market dominance, according to the latest figures from Hitwise.

Although very slightly down from the 87.69 per cent in April 2008, the figure represents a nine per cent increase on May 2007.

In contrast the competition has seen its limited market share whittled way over the past year.

Yahoo dropped from 8.58 per cent to 4.09 per cent, MSN fell from 5.46 per cent to 3.72 per cent and Ask tumbled from 4.96 per cent to 3.07 per cent.

Google's hold on the search market is significantly less in the US market, accounting for 68.29 per cent of all US searches.

Yahoo and Microsoft collectively account for nearly 26 per cent of the US search market, lending credibility to Microsoft's claim that only by joining forces with Yahoo can Google's dominance even begin to be countered.