As the Google world turns so does that of the competition. For months now Google has been dominating the search engine market with Yahoo being a distant runner up. Recent reports state that Google maintains a 47.3% market share in the US. Yahoo is second with 28.5%. However the gap between the two search giants may begin to close and here's why:
- Google is in danger of becoming complacent - while they are widely considered as being an innovative company, there is only so many companies they can purchase and only so many partnerships that they can form.
- Yahoo spent 2006 "house cleaning" in preparation for a focused drive towards a better search product. Starting with the release of "Panama", Yahoo has taken babysteps to improve their search offering. Early indications suggest that they are having modest success and will continue to do so.
- Natural Progression of the "Product Lifecycle" - The "product" being Google and as we all know that in time all products fall to planned obsolescence... all products become somewhat obsolete.
- The other search players have been underachieving - Yahoo, Microsoft and ASK can expect to see better days. This may be the most difficult for Microsoft as the ego of this corporation has prevented the company from finding the success that Google has enjoyed.
- It's time for a new player to step up - Google came from out of nowhere and rose to stardom fairly quickly. It's not impossible for a new upstart to do the same.
While Yahoo may never overtake Google as the number one search engine, they will provide stiffer competition for Google. In 2005 Yahoo Chairman and CEO Terry Semel promised "important upgrades" in search advertiser platforms offered by Yahoo. We are seeing the result now with "Panama". With a number of social networking offerings, Yahoo may be starting to make the move from the outhouse to the penthouse.
Labels: search engine market share, Terry Semel, yahoo
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All these theories apart, practically speaking, the internet economy is still driven by Google. Google Advertisers and Google partners in the Ad network benefit enormously and these benefits are possible because of the extent of the Google Ad network. All this has not come up in a day. It will take much more than what it took Google to take over the Search Engine market. Y! & MSN and others are struggling hard because of inferior technology. At the end of the day, Google is loved by users for the search results they fetch. As long as the basic search engine technology remains inferior to that of Google, no company can beat Google at it. I'm not all praises for Google; but essentially at the end of the day, it's Search Engine Results that matter to a user. How many users are interested in using Y!/MSN/Ask viz-a-viz Google, that is the question...