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As expected, Microsoft's Bing search engine got a big boost late last month when it took over search queries on Yahoo.

In the last week of August, when the switch occurred, Bing handled nearly a quarter of all U.S. web searchers, Internet metrics firm Experian Hitwise reported Tuesday. For the four-week period ending Aug. 28, 14.28% of all search queries went through Yahoo search and 9.87% through Bing. The number of searches on Bing was unchanged from July, while Yahoo saw a 1% dip.

As usual, Google dominated the market, accounting for 71.59% of U.S. web searches in August, unchanged from July. A total of 62 search engines shared the remaining 4.26% of the market.

In terms of directing traffic to key industry categories, Google delivered the most visits in August to automotive, health, shopping, and travel sites. However, Bing continued to make progress, showing double-digit growth year over year in all the categories. In shopping, the number of searches on Bing soared 66% from the same month a year ago.

Microsoft and Yahoo have completed the integration in the United States and Canada, with other countries to follow. Yahoo also plans to adopt Microsoft's AdCenter as its online advertising platform. All the work is expected to be completed in the fall.

Under the 10-year deal, announced in July 2009, Bing will operate on all Yahoo sites and initially keep 12% of the revenue from Yahoo-driven searches. Yahoo will handle sales and marketing for premium search ads for its own properties and Microsoft's.

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