June was not a big month for Bing, and according to the latest figures from Web analytics firm Net Applications, it's barely any further ahead than when Microsoft rolled out.

Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Bing has been available now for 13 months, and despite millions spent on clever TV ads in the U.S., spending to promote the company's latest search engine hasn't broken it out of the low single digits worldwide in terms of market share.

Still, all eyes continue to watch Bing to see if Microsoft's big budget assault on Google's global dominance will be able to overtake the search giant.

The latest figures come at a time when the battle for search engine dominance is being closely followed by SEO and e-commerce marketers, who are eagerly watching to see whether Microsoft can unseat Google, and whether the competition among search providers drives down the price of keyword purchases.

Despite successes in the U.S., where the search engine has made some gains, however, Bing's overall share worldwide remains tiny and stagnant.

According to Net Applications, Bing finished June with 3.39 percent market share of searches made globally, a mere 0.43 percent gain from the 2.96 percent share that Bing held when it finished its first month of operation at the end of June 2009.

In contrast, the dominant search purveyor, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), finished June 2010 with 84.96 percent share, up from 78.60 percent at the end of June 2009 -- a gain of 6.36 percent.

Month-to-month, Bing gained 0.15 percent between May and June, while Google picked up an almost identical amount -- 0.16 percent -- in the same time.

Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) didn't fare any better. It finished June 2010 with 6.24 percent of global searches. That's up 0.05 percent from the end of May, but a drop of 0.91 percent from a year ago, when it had 7.15 percent share.

Coming in a close fourth place, was Chinese search engine Baidu, which is currently running neck-in-neck with Bing, albeit Baidu appears to be in danger of sliding off into oblivion.

For example, Baidu finished June with 3.06 percent market share, a loss of 0.1 percent from May's figures. For comparison, Baidu ended June 2009 with 8.77 percent, so it has lost 5.71 percent since that time.

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer introduced Bing in late May 2009, and has said that he will spend billions if he has to in order to make the search engine successful.

The question remains, however, whether even Ballmer's deep pockets can make Bing successful, especially if it remains stuck in the summer doldrums.

Stuart J. Johnston is a contributing writer at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @stuarj1000.