76% of active web surfers used a search engine in January, study says

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115 million U.S. consumers, or 76% of active web surfers, used an Internet search engine in January, Nielsen/NetRatings reports. Google led all search engines with a unique audience of 59.3 million, for a 39% share, followed by Yahoo and MSN, each with 30% shares. Next were AOL Search with 15.5% and Ask Jeeves with 8.5%, Nielsen says.

"Search engines continue to be the primary tool people use to navigate the web," said Jason Levin, analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "With the big search players having recently updated their search capabilities, Internet users should expect to find even better search results from the major search engines in the near future."