Google Continues Search Engine Dominance - Even In Verticals!
In a timely follow-up to Alex Iskold's thought-provoking piece on Google being The Ultimate Money Making Machine, Hitwise has released stats today that reinforce Google's dominance in the search engine market - at least in the USA, the leading market still. Hitwise says that Google accounted for 64 percent of all US searches in the four weeks ending March 31, 2007. Their main competitors were far behind: Yahoo! Search got 22%, MSN Search 9% and Ask.com 3%. The remaining 48 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 5 percent of U.S. searches. Note to Hitwise: check out Charles Knight's Top 100 Alt Search Engine list for a further 48 search engines (4 + 48 + 48) to add to your list ;-)
Here are the charts from Hitwise, with a bit of commentary below each...
This chart clearly shows Google is continuing to grow it's search market lead - up from 58% this time last year to 64% this year. MSN is the main loser in this, dropping from 13% to 9% over the past year. It's not impossible to think that Google may end up with an Internet Explorer-like dominance in search within a couple of years.
Hitwise notes in its press release that "search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key industry categories." We've noted on Read/WriteWeb a number of times that vertical search is one area in which Google could be successfully challenged. However, Hitwise's data says that Google has in fact increased its share of vertical search traffic - by 20%+ in 4 cases (see last column in above table). What's going on here? Clearly there are many impressive best of breed vertical search engines - e.g. TheFind.com, a shopping search engine that R/WW author Sramana Mitra gave very high marks to this week. Yet they don't seem to be stopping the Google juggernaught in vertical search categories. Personally I'd like to see more data though, on the growth (or otherwise) of vertical SE like TheFind, Kayak in travel, Retrevo in electronics, etc.
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Richard,
The answer is simple. You and I may know about the vertical search engines but not the average user. And its gonna require a lot of marketing and awareness for the vertical engines to become the average user's search engine of choice. For all they know, Google=Search which is what the data from Hitwise seems to suggest.
I do think Travel is one area where sites like Kayak are gaining popularity primarily due to the fact that their results actually can save money for users.
Perhaps an approach where users can search multiple sites simultaneously (as provided by ZCubes) can help some of the vertical search engines since users will be able to compare results between the specialized vs the generic engines and thus may be able to perceive the value provided by the verticals.
What's going on - maybe Steve Krugs definition of search hits the nail on the head: Search is a box with a button labeled 'Search'.
Whilst he was primarily talking about what to stick on your own Website it probably applies to the Internet as a whole. Search is A box with A button labeled 'Search'. "A", of course happens to be Google.
Most people I observe when they are searching don't have the energy, inclination or time to find another text box/button combo even if they are "better".
For me (and I suspect others) the thought pattern is usually something like this:
"Hmm, I'll find that on the Internet. Open browser. Go to Google. Type in Google search box words. Click 'search'"
There is never a question that Google isn't the best place to go to. It's the search box, that's what it does. Why do I need another?
As you say, the "IE" of Search ... but hang on, IE isn't quite as dominant as it was, hmm, maybe there is hope for other search providers.
they are a massive money maker, and while i tend to be somewhat anarchist at heart, i dont care. quite simply google provide a massively useful service to the online world for free. well several useful services, all for free. kinda hard not to love a company like that
There's going to have to be something BIG in order for people to switch. I'm not talking about faster indexing or even more relevant results. I'm talking about something that shifts the entire paradigm.
Search right now is all about finding a document that most closely matches your request. Google does that really well, so it would be very hard to displace them in that respect.
What would be useful, at least to me, would be the ability to see results based on my personal network... WITHOUT having to do much work. For example, if I'm looking for a used item, it would be much more beneficial for me to be able to input what I want, and see who's selling based on how closely they are related to my network.
I'm not sure how it would work, but I would most likely use it just as often as I use Google (again, nothing will replace my Google homepage!)
Google will rule for a thousand years! It's sad but very true. The problem is Googs is just too far ahead and most importantly (as I have probably said here before) has way to much cash not to be able to develop or buy itself out of any flagging fortunes.
Well... I don't agree with the whole "thousand years" statement (I know you're kidding, but even if you said 20 years, I'd be just as skeptical). Google is great... But I would have said the same thing about Lycos or Yahoo before I was introduced to the Google engine.
Technology moves forward at such a rapid pace that it's almost impossible to predict. Google is the best thing on the block now... until computing takes a mobile shift and the web is integrated into everything. At that point, I think something much more semantic will make sense... maybe an engine that associates users to data.
Google will dominate HTML document search... But as far as other data, I think there is more than enough room to grow.
@ Robert Dewey - indeed a semantic search engine would make much more sense compared to the keyword/pageranking-based results Google offers. Next to semantics, I would like to go for languaged-based search, supported by associative searching techniques. As far as Google could go based on Google's knowledge of us users, a social search based on my profile would be ultimate.
I agree with you of the Google domination on HTML documents (and, I am afraid, all regular other document types found on the web...). The first and foremost reason is convenience.
However, how long will this convenience last when search techniques are required on different media, such as TV? Keyboards are missing, and using a remote control for entering a search enquiry is a different type of ballgame. 'Documents' are replaced by programmes, the distance between user and screen is ten feet instead of two, searching behavior is different from the average Google enquiry. I believe there is an amazing opportunity for an other type of Google to claim this domain for searching technology.