How's the search retention rate doing so far?

Based on Nielsen//NetRatings' report, leaders in search experienced healthy month-over-month visitor retention rates in June and July, but they also experienced significant audience overlap with competitors.

Additionally, search engines have high visitor retention rates among at-work users, with an average of 76% of June business visitors returning in July to at least 1 of the 3 major search engines. Google Search tops the ratings with a retention rate of 85% of visitors, followed by Yahoo Search at 72% and MSN/Windows live search at 70%. The report added Visitor retention rates were slightly higher among the work audience compared with the home audience.

But search remains a fierce competition arena. To stress, a substantial number of visitors went to more than 1 of the 3 search giants in July, said B to B Magazine. MSN/Windows Live Search had the highest audience overlap, with 84% of its unique visitors also going to Google, or Yahoo or both. Yahoo had a 78% overlap with the other two, while Google had a 63% percent audience overlap.