The results of global search statistics have been announced and predictably Google (GOOG) snatched the top position for frequently being used to search websites across the world. Surging from 55.6 billion searches in Dec 2008 to 87.8 billion in Dec 2009, it rose over 58%.

Google, as usual, was the top ranker and it wasn’t a difficult guess. Yahoo (YHOO) searches totaled 9.4 billion, whereas Baidu (BIDU) had 8.5 billion. So, Google is far ahead in the competition. In December 2009, over two-third of the total searches (131 billion) were contributed by Google.

However, if we gauge the leap in number of searches, Microsoft (MSFT) emerged to be the winner. With 2.4 billion searches in Dec 2008, it rose around 70% to reach the figure of 4.1 billion in Dec 2009. This surge can be mainly due to the introduction of its new search engine, Bing, which seems to holding grip quite rapidly. Another search engine which saw major rise in number of searches was Yandex, a Russian search engine that ascended around 91% to reach 1.9 billion searches in Dec 2009.

This major augment in number of searches for companies individually can be essentially due to increase in number of total searches around the world. The December results revealed that there was a sharp 50% increase in total number of searches toting up over 131 billion, with around 4 billion searches per day, 175 million searches every hour, and 29 million searches per minute.

Around 22.7 billion searches were directed from the U.S. contributing around 17% of the overall searches worldwide. It was followed by China, Japan, and U.K. with 13.3, 9.2, and 6.2 billion searches respectively. However, if we compare the countries in terms of increase in number of searches, it was Russia grabbing the top spot with 92% increasing reaching 3.3 billion searches in Dec 2009.

It would be quite interesting to watch the 2010 figures due the recent China-Google ruckus. Google recently blamed China and 20 other companies (including Yahoo) for being subjected to various cyber attacks. This incident is compelling Google to modify its operating strategy in the country. Google has also threatened that it would close down offices and search engine service in China. The fact is, Google is losing base in the country because Baidu seems to be more famous and widely used by public as compared to Google. If Google opts to pull back its services from the country with world’s largest population, it still wouldn’t affect its world wide ranking.