Figures from Experian-operated Hitwise revealed increased market share for Google, Yahoo! and Ask in November, while in social media MySpace dropped out of the top ten social networks and was replaced by Stumble Upon.

Google Sites maintained their dominance of the search market in November with a slight increase of 0.05 per cent market share of total UK Internet searches.

This took Google to 91.07 per cent of all UK searches, up from 90.39 per cent in November 2010.

Ask Sites saw a third consecutive month of growth also up by 0.05 per cent since October 2011 and up 0.11 per cent year-on-year.

Microsoft Sites had a slight dip in market share between October and November but still held 3.84 per cent of all searches conducted by UK Internet users for the month.

However, Microsoft was still up year-on-year by 0.49 per cent demonstrating the continued growth of the second largest search provider in the UK.

Other search engines meanwhile were down month-on-month and year-on-year, accounting for less than half a per cent of UK search.

“Google is not only the biggest search engine in the UK but it is also the fastest growing search engine of November,” commented James Murray, market research analyst at Experian Hitwise.

“Christmas is a key time of year for the online industry but particularly for online retail.

“We have already seen a record-breaking 84.6 million visits online on Cyber Monday (December 5th) to retail websites, of which 42 per cent came from search engines.

“We know that post-Christmas traffic to retailers is going to be even higher, so this is a crucial time for search and for brands to optimise their search campaigns.”

MySpace falls out of top ten social networks for first time ever

In the Social Networking and Forums category the focus was drawn away from the top of the table as Stumble Upon broke into the top ten most visited social networking sites, climbing above MySpace for the first time ever.

The other websites in the top ten maintained their positions from last month, but YouTube was once again the fastest moving website of November increasing its market share of visits to the category by 0.67 per cent.

Overall, seven of the top ten social networks in November increased their market share of visits, with just Twitter, Gumtree and LinkedIn losing market share since October.

Facebook continued to grow, accounting for 52.63 per cent of all visits to social networks during the month.

Year-on-year, YouTube continues to have the strongest growth with a 6.10 per cent increase in market share of visits since November 2010.