Have you heard the news? Microsoft’s Bing is taking a bite out of Google, boasting first-month market share gains while the competition’s stronghold slips away! At least, that’s what some headlines around the Web might lead you to believe this week.

The truth, though, is that the change is not nearly as dramatic as it appears at a glance. While Bing has, according to certain data, minimally increased Microsoft’s search market share, Google’s position has not significantly shifted.

Bing vs. Google: The Buzz

All the buzz comes from a new search market analysis by Web stats company StatCounter. Bing, the researchers say, secured 8.23 percent of all U.S.-based searches for the month of June. (Bing officially launched on June 3.) The previous month, StatCounter shows Microsoft sitting at 7.81 percent of U.S. searches. That amounts to a month-to-month increase of just under half a percentage point following Bing’s debut.

Google, during that same time span, dropped from 78.72 percent to 78.48 of U.S. searches — a decrease of 0.24 percent, according to StatCounter’s data. Looking back to April, the difference becomes slightly less apt to be obliterated by a sneeze: Google’s two-month drop amounts to 0.59 percent, while Microsoft’s April-to-June gain comes out to 1.02 percent.

In an attempt to get more users, Microsoft has added SearchPerks to its Live Search service.

But, unless you have Internet Explorer 6.0, you aren’t even able to access the SearchPerks registration form. Yep. In order to test out SearchPerks you need to have IE 6 or higher. That’s a deal breaker right there.

With only a 9% market share compared with Google’s 60%, Microsoft refuses to give up on the search market. And you have to admire that fact – despite the failed Yahoo acquisition (which Google sidled up and snagged), it’s full steam ahead! Microsoft will not quit – but it will pay you to use Live Search.

So what is SearchPerks? Registered users agree to download a usage tracking program and then earn one ticket per every Live Search query (up to 25 tickets per day) until the program ends in April. Users can then redeem their tickets for prizes or donate the rewards to charity.

As interesting as it sounds, the SearchPerks registration page has a bit of a late-night infomercial feel to it. Things like “the sooner you sign up, the more opportunity you have to earn tickets!” are reminiscent of the “act now to receive your second Magic Bullet completely free!” But then again, perks persuade people to buy (or in this case, be bought).

By offering up SearchPerks to attract users, has Microsoft inadvertently proved Google’s strength? The search engine should speak for itself, no gimmicks necessary.