With Google being the most popular search engine in the world, and particularly in the US, it is not yet gained enough ground in non-English speaking countries. While in India, the UK and Australia Google is the runaway leader in Search Engine competition, there are still countries in which local search engines are quite successful in opposing the G- giant. Baidu is number one in China (and there is also a new player in the SE field, supported by the government – goso.cn), and most former USSR-countries internet users (Russian speakers) prefer Yandex over Google.
Yet, Google is trying hard to get into the local markets. Recently, it has reported a successful takeover of the number one spot in Czech Republic, surpassing the local leader Seznam.cz in the first week of 2011.
Seznam, however, does not agree, stating that the statistics are not conclusive, and presents different figures, such as having almost 70% of Czech internet “population” with about 4 million users. Moreover, Seznam.cz emphasizes the misleading inaccuracy, as Google statement is based on report that takes into account both local and global pages, while Seznam only concentrates on Czech-based domains. They are also accusing Google of “refusing to participate in official measuring”.
Well, whether Google report is accurate or not is not very significant. The important fact is that Google puts an enormous amount of effort to increase the grasp of local, non-English-speaking markets.
Several polls, conducted recently, approve that the search engines are still regarded reliable by the internet users, yet the influence of “spammers” worries many searches.
Over 33 percent of the responders to the question: “Have Google’s Search Results Become Less Useful To You?”, said that the spammers “have gained a significant foothold”. Over 40 percent responded with the “kind of” statement, making a total of over 75% percent noticing the negative influence of “noise” on Google Search. With less than 4% stating that results got better, it seems that the spam issue needs to worry Google algorithmists.
Nevertheless, almost 90% still find Search Engines (and most use Google, of course) do either “excellent” or “good” job of finding relevant information, and about two-thirds of users rate Google results as “useful”.
With other search engines trying to close the gap between the runaway leader in the Search Industry, they might well switch their attention to inventing better search algorithms. Yet, there is no guarantee that those will produce less “noisy” results. And even if they do, and Google will lose a considerable amount of market percentage – the spammers will probably quickly adjust their techniques to alter these “new-search-algorithm” results as well…
It has only been several months since Google had announced and completed the “New Adsense” – a redesign of the familiar GUI, adding several features to impress the users. And here it is – they are already adding more attributes to the popular money-making feature.
According to recent report, there will be now more things you could do in your Google Adsense account, such as creating and editing channels in Adsense for Games and Adsense for Video, blocking specific products by names and view the reports by page, and not only by unit.
There have also been some “renames” – the HTML is now “rich media” and Dynamic Images are called “Animated Images”. All those (as well as text, image and Flash) are included in the performance reports as “Ad types”. In addition, “Ad Requests” is the term that is now used instead of “Unit Impressions”, counting each time the request to show the ad is sent by the website towards Google service.
Google hopes these updates will be beneficial to Adsense users, making the popular “monetize you website” option preferable over Affiliate marketing, specific client banners and other possibilities.now
Google Webmaster Tools are a popular feature, servicing hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of website owners and web analytics over the world. Everybody works with the provided numbers, without questioning the reliability of the data. However, ask a mechanical engineer – and he will tell you that everything in this world has a “tolerance” and no value is absolutely accurate.
The same mechanical engineer will tell you that usual general acceptable tolerance is about 1%, so when certain parts should be 10 inch, it can easily measure 10.1 inch or 9.99 inch – and will still pass the Quality Assurance test.
It seems, Google is not yet ready to go into Product Design. Reportedly, the numbers offered by Google Webmaster Tools are only 90% accurate. According to Google’s Asaph Zemach, who was asked about number of impressions staying constant for three months time: “…when you see 24,900,000 you should really think 25M+/- 2.5M…”
Thus, if you think that your website is ahead of competitors, with 50 million impressions compared to their 48 million, they might be already ahead of you, as your actual figure might be as low as 45 million and theirs – as high as 52 million… As usual, statistics can be deceiving – and Google’s +/-10% just makes it more so…
Perhaps the key to answering this question lies in the title of a book published a couple of years ago: What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis. What has Google done, what will they do in the future? To summarize the book-length answer, Google will do just about anything to become the “fastest growing company in history,” as Jarvis noted in the book. Google is no longer just a search engine. In fact, all the evidence points to the fact that Google hasn’t been just a search engine for a long time.
As you evaluate how to feel about Google’s direction, keep in mind that Jarvis’s correctly credits this massive Internet-based company with completely changing the way many businesses do business. In essence, many established companies and a whole lot of new companies are thriving with a new philosophy: Charge as little as possible to stay alive.
This flies in the face of the “old” business model of charging as much as the market will bear. Stated another way: Free is a good business model. Of course, consumers eventually pay, but the amount is smaller up front and continues over a long period of time.
All those great free tools come at a price
Google through the years has developed convenient products and tools, usually in the ‘free’ category: Google Analytics, Google Chrome, Google keyword research tools, Gmail , Google Alerts, Google Insights, Google Checkout, Chrome Operating System and Android (Google’s Cell Phone Operating System). The entire list can be found here. Most are free to the user, and profitable to Google. Since Google’s only source of revenue is advertising, you want the user to stay on your internet property for as long as possible, so it makes sense to offer users more and more opportunities to spend their time with you. Sounds like smart business to me. Google keeps us users happy by giving us faster, better, and free tools, dominating the market.
Google advertises these free tools using its own search engine, a search engine with an estimated 70% of US market share according to Hitwise. Is this really fair? Google putting their free products within the search results (typically in the #1 spot), when someone else offering that product has been paying Google for advertising all these years. In business, it is not a strong model to compete with your clients. But anyone competing with Google on one of these free products cannot afford to stop advertising with their new competitor, since Google controls most of the search market. They can’t survive without Google. They have no choice but to share the market with Google, once a portal now a competitor. Yes, this is capitalism, survival of the fittest. But longevity in business also includes keeping your clients happy, and I am not happy to give my money to someone that is now my competitor. The second I could make a move, I would do it.
I won’t spend money with Google Adwords once they compete with me, but…
…it’s not just advertising revenue that Google’s competitors are giving them. It’s data and information. Google has now acquired ITA Software, a company that develops software for the airline industry and travel agencies, among others. Marissa Mayer, vice president for geographic and local services at Google, wrote, “Once we’ve completed our acquisition of ITA, we’ll work on creating new flight search tools that will make it easier for you to search for flights, compare flight options and prices and get you quickly to a site where you can buy your ticket.” Sounds like Expedia, Travelocity, or countless other very large PPC clients of Google.
And how will Google build its reputation as the internet’s #1 travel resource? Besides being able to control the top piece of real estate in paid and natural results, let’s just ask TripAdvisor what they think. TripAdvisor recently temporarily pulled Google’s access to their user reviews.
What’s wrong with Trip Advisor sharing the reviews in Google Places results? After all, it links straight to the TripAdvisor site. Well, TripAdvisor has spent years collecting that data. Why should they help Google in their quest to become not just a search engine that lists travel sites, but as destination themselves, a potential Google Travel that could replace TripAdvisor. Brilliant move on TA’s part, but a shame they did not stick to their guns because they quickly allowed their reviews to be used once again.
Google Retail: Amazon take notice
Google has the market share, why not start selling stuff? Surely they would not start selling actual products as another stream of revenue. But as a matter of fact, Google has a Fashion Web site. Boutiques.com you didn’t know that? Here’s some interesting text from Boutiques.com, “a personalized shopping experience, brought to you by Google. Boutiques.com uses visual technology to help fashionistas discover and shop their look and creates the opportunity for designers to showcase their collections and latest inspirations online.”
If the company extends this type of front door to flowers, gifts, wine, etc., would that make it another Amazon? Should Amazon be leary?
Absolutely, Google is considering putting up a successful fight against Kindle, the e-book reader and application. According to iReaderreview.com, Google is moving toward selling all the books available in the Kindle Store and “also giving away a ton of books.” That sounds very “Amazonish” to me.
Providing Google with money and information could put you out of business.
An important distinction that is not often talked about: spending money on PPC, directly giving money to Google who has now become or has potential to become your competitor, is only a piece of the puzzle. Even if Google’s clients/competitors are not spending PPC budget on Google Adwords, just letting Googlebot visit your site, gather and return data to its users, helps this company grow and thrive. Think about it: If you support their search engine, you are supporting the business model. Google’s world domination business model is not sounding as ‘tin foil hat’ as it used to.
I’ll leave you with this hopeful stirring thought. How about this scenario: Imagine if Google was not the biggest search engine. Imagine if 20 of the largest web properties in a particular industry all blocked Googlebot from their site. Then Google’s results are no longer relevant. People stop using Google. The giant tumbles. YOUR competitor tumbles. This is capitalism after all.
Article first published as Is Google a Search Engine or Your Biggest Competitor? on Technorati.
It is widely known that Google has many local rivals in the Search Engine field. Many Russians prefer Yandex over Google, Israelis use Walla and in China there is Baidu. Most of those engines are extremely localized, providing relevant search results and successfully battling with Google in the local market – especially, since they use local language in countries with relatively low English level among computer and internet users.
Almost half-billion China-based internet users are a huge marketing potential. It seems, Chinese government has recognized it, deciding to launch a new search engine, which will be the first state-owned SE in the world. After over half a year of trial version (how do you say “beta” in Chinese?), goso.cn is now fully operational and available. The idea is to implement elements of social media into the engine – such as videos, photos and comments sharing. Mobile version is expected as well.
Of course, competing with Baidu and Google is not an easy task – but with the support of the government, goso can well become a healthy search engine alternative in few years time.
According to several anonymous sources, Googel is planning to launch an e-newsstand application that will run on Android tablets and smartphones in order to battle Apple’s iTunes sales.
Leading publishers, such as Time Inc and Wall Street Journal, are being approached by the not-only-biggest-Search-Engine executives in order to establish a fruitful cooperation and figure out the most beneficial way of application development. Commissions lower than those of Apple’s (30 percent) are being promised as well as various advanced buyer’s data-gathering features.
When all this is going to happen is unclear, and some doubt that the venture will launch at all – but the initiative is too important to overlook as Google looks to enter another niche.
Our world, especially the online part of it, is all about speed. That’s why Google had become so popular so quickly. The amount of search results shown and the speed at which those result have been accumulated and presented to the user did the trick.
Nowadays, of course, many search engines are almost as quick as Google, the difference in speed of producing the search results measured in milliseconds. However, what the users now want from their SE is convenience and reliability. With several questions asked about Google supposedly “biased” results, the Search Engine giant’s UI had never been an issue. That is, until now. The revised Google Image Search has a problem that can reduce the speed of entering a query.
Normally, when you type the query term in the search box and get the results, you do not use your mouse. Continue typing for “narrowing” the search, or press Shift-Backspace to erase the previous entry and start over. So far so good. However, when you use Google Image Search, the query box seems to lose the mouse focus once the pointer is moved – deliberately, or accidentally. So, when you decide to alternate your search, you have to use the mouse (one of the worst nightmares of the speedy typer) in order to activate the query box again.
Google have reported they are aware of the problem and the “frustration” and “looking for ways” to solve it.
UK shopping market maybe smaller than the US one, but Google wants to make an impact on it as well, introducing Google Nearby Shops UK. Now, when you query for certain product via UK Google Product Search, you will have the shops selling it appearing map-style below your search, to help you locate the closest item to your location.
Of course, if you are a merchant and want to take advantage of this feature, becoming listed in those results, you need to have your shop’s URL linked to both Google Places and Google Merchant Center.
For both buyers and sellers, this combination of Google Maps and Google Products can be very useful in this Holiday season.
You might have noticed that starting mid-December, Google is labeling certain websites with “this site may be compromised” notice that appears in the search results under the website’s link. According to Google’s Matt Curtis, this is actually done to help webmasters, noting that their website is probably being hacked. The procedure of banning sites from Google search index as noting the owners via Google Webmaster tools has proved “too slow” as not many site owners check their Webmaster Tools notifications on regular basis.
As the hacked website does not usually present an immediate threat to the visitor (if malware is detected, Google Search will show the more aggressive “This site may be harmful to your computer” message), the “this site may be compromised” notice is destined mainly towards owners, who constantly monitor their website appearance in Google search, urging them to pay an immediate attention to the problem.
