The latest search market share numbers for January show a slight decline for MSN/Live Search, a nosedive for Yahoo!, and more steady increases for Google, according to an entry in the Compete.com blog.

We compared Compete, Nielsen, and Hitwise for the search market shares in 2007, and they all seem to have their own take on things, so we will see what the other numbers show, but clearly business as usual is becoming less of an option for either Microsoft or Yahoo! if they wish to compete with Google.

Like Compete.com, we're interested to see what all the talk of a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo! does to the February numbers.