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Have you heard the propaganda? Microsoft's Bing is taking a bite out of Google, boasting first-month sale 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 sale share, Google's position has not significantly shifted.

All the buzz comes from a new search sale 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 Bings 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.