The latest numbers from comScore show that overall search volume growth in the U.S. fell to 7.6 percent in March, a 2.8-percent difference from the previous month and a considerably steeper drop from March, 2009:

•    March, 2009: 33.1%
•    June, 2009: 21.8%
•    September, 2009: 17.3%
•    December, 2009: 16.5%
•    January, 2010: 12.4%
•    February, 2010: 10.4%
•    March, 2010: 7.6%

In the U.S. share numbers, Google dropped four-tenths of a point to 65.1 percent. Yahoo had an equally uncharacteristic rise in share, and though it was only .01 percent (to 16.9%), it was the search engine’s first forward progress in 14 months.

Bing, meanwhile, continued to climb in the U.S. share results, gaining two-tenths of a percent to put it at 11.7.

So, what’s taking place in the search industry, at least in the U.S.? Barclays Capital Internet analyst Douglas Anmuth at least partly attributes the overall decline in growth to challenging comps that he says will last for another couple of months.