Fears that the the great Google growth machine may be slowing have been eased by a new comScore.com analysis that shows that search queries revived last month.

That is a development that will be welcome by investors anxiously awaiting Google's first-quarter results on Thursday. And while Google is gaining in the search market, Yahoo is losing ground, just at a time when that company is desperately trying to stave off a takeover by Microsoft.

Google's total searches increased by 30 percent in March on an annual basis, according to new comScore numbers, while Yahoo's searches fell by 2 percent.

"Google continues to gain share, with year-over-year query growth accelerating up 30 percent in March," Ben Schachter, an analyst with UBS, wrote in a note to clients. "Yahoo was the sole search property of the 'Big Five' to show negative query growth in March."

On a monthly basis, Google's share of the domestic search market grew to 59.8 percent in March, according to comScore, up from 59.2 percent in February, while Yahoo's share fell to 21.3 percent, down from 21.6 percent in February.

MSN's March search market share was 9.4 percent, down from 9.6 percent in February, while AOL's market share was 4.8 percent, down from 4.9 percent in February.

The new data show that Google continues to grow its commanding lead in the search market, while Yahoo falters.

Google's investors will be looking at its first-quarter results to see how the company is coping with a softening internet-advertising market. In the fourth quarter, Google had trouble monetizing its social-networking business, which consists primarily of its $900 million deal to handle ads on MySpace.

"We are cautious on Google's quarter due to the apparent lack of meaningful monetization improvements, slowing paid click volumes, and our view that the Street's margin estimates are too high," UBS's Schachter wrote to clients.

Furthermore, another study shows that Google's growth in search ad dollars in the U.S. market lagged behind that of Yahoo's in the first quarter, Miguel Helft reports on the New York Times Bits blog. The study SearchIgnite, a search-advertising technology firm, showed that "spending by search advertisers on Yahoo grew a robust 57 percent while spending on Google grew only at about half that rate," Helft says.

Yahoo, which reports quarterly results on April 22, hopes that its numbers show that it is healthy and doesn't need Microsoft or any other company to come to its rescue.

"Given the management team's track record," Schachter wrote, "it is difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt that they will post much of an upside surprise."