Bing – Microsoft’s much talked-about new search engine – achieved a 10%+ share of the overall US search market in August, according to newly released figures from Nielsen. As well as the respectable market share percentage, Bing also registered the biggest month-on-month growth of any search engine by some distance, upping its usership by more than 22%.

Google, of course, still dominates proceedings with a 64.6% share of the market, followed by Microsoft’s new search partners Yahoo! in second place with a 16% share. Notably, Yahoo’s month-on-month usership dropped by more than 4%, perhaps giving an indication of where some of Bing’s new users are coming from. Google’s userbase crept up to 2.6% in the same month.

So it’s good news for Microsoft then?

Yes and no. Yes because it’s moving in the right direction and registered a fairly huge jump in users in a relatively short space of time. No because the shift in users looks like it was Yahoo!-to-Bing as opposed to Google-to-Bing as Microsoft would’ve no doubt been aiming for. If Bing’s userbase is going to grow in this fashion long-term then there’s a clear ceiling to how far it can go. Unless it starts winning Google’s audience over on a significant scale then it won’t make much more of a dent in the market share ratings.

Also, we’ve got the inescapable fact that Google isn’t going anywhere.

Google is still big news

Google set the blogosphere alight yesterday by simply posting a cryptic crop circle symbol in its usual logo space, without explanation. The move, whatever it was about, even achieved references on international newspaper websites as well as the usual tech blog soapboxes. This is the sort of position that Google is in now – getting major publicity without even trying. It’s a position that Microsoft – at the moment – can only dream about achieving with Bing.

However, at the end of the day it’s just a month’s worth of stats. The real proof of any progress will come in 2010 when Bing has been around for a full year. Perhaps only then will the true size of the task become clear.