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Google Still Ahead In Search Competition

Posted by michael on from the second-place-is-first-loser dept.

ricst writes "Google is, as we all know, King of the Hill. But Yahoo, MSN and others have come a long ways towards catching up as this International Herald Tribune article describes. The gap between 'best' and 'next best' has narrowed substantially. The good thing is that we all benefit as these guys keep challenging each other."

20 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. MSN? What!?! by aldridge · · Score: 4, Interesting

    MSN and Yahoo still have a long way to go. I like Google for its simplistic site design and its lack of obtrusive banner advertisements shoved in your face. I use the word simplistic cautiously because as we all know Google is very powerful and keeps getting better every day. Who seriously wants to support Microsoft anyways?

    1. Re:MSN? What!?! by forand · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Unfortunatly the same people who click on banner ads. I would agree that I don't know anyone who would use MSN by choice but how many people just use the page that comes up after someone installed the OS or upgrade for them? Those are the same people who are much more likily to click on ads.

    2. Re:MSN? What!?! by benjamindees · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I like Google for its simplistic site design and its lack of obtrusive banner advertisements shoved in your face.

      So do I, but I'm wondering, now that these other search engines have dropped Google's services, can Google resist the urge to add these annoying "features" while still turning a profit?

      --
      "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
    3. Re:MSN? What!?! by dustmite · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you're paranoid you should worry more about Google than about Microsoft because what Google does actually matters

      Good grief, are you stupid, trolling, or shilling? Microsoft has a proven track-record of frequent, regular and ongoing unethical behaviour that stretches back some two decades or so, and they've shown no signs of changing. Google have so far not shown any signs of unethical behaviour at all. Where the hell do you get the idea that this has anything to do with "paranoia", it's just bloody common sense to judge companies by their actions in this way. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Of course one can never tell for sure, but it's the best gauge we have (gosh, if you lack this basic common sense I don't know how you manage personal relationships) ... if Google starts behaving unethically, or if Microsoft starts behaving ethically, of course I'll re-evaluate my opinions of them. But it's just plain stupid to suddenly ignore the "known criminal" and worry about the "known well-behaver".

      Your copyright arguments are so ridiculous I suspect I'm feeding a troll here, but if you're really that worried about it just add Google to your friggin "robots.txt" and 'the bad Google will go away, little Joey'.

    4. Re:MSN? What!?! by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Interesting

      yep.. nowadays you look for a review for a product and 50% of the sites are just fake-review sites.. fake as in they don't have the reviews themselfs, but rather link to other sites that link to other sites that link to.. maybe a real review in the end.

      fucking linkfarms. wouldn't take _that_ much of browsing around to ban them even. google needs a big blacklisting option... "never show this site to me again" or whatever.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. The key difference by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The main thing I think that keeps Google ahead of everyone else is that they seem to be some nice folks.

    They've never gone and done anything nefarious (Micro$haft), and they've never had to switch search engines every other month (Yahoo!). They've just put out a quality product and improved on it continuously.

    They've got good tools that are both powerful and unobtrusive. They have very good search results. And they offer free services that make using their software a real pleasure.

    Yahoo and Microsoft can try to do what they like, but they just aren't as cool as Google. I seem to recall a previous article on Slashdot that stated that most searches conducted at Micro$haft are done on Google, even over M$N search.

    1. Re:The key difference by gad_zuki! · · Score: 3, Interesting

      >They do this because Google places higher value on pages with search terms directly in the URL.

      I just hate this, because its been abused for so long and google has done nothing to stop it. I believe some blog software uses this form now either by default or as a setting. So someone blogging about "minnesota fishing sucks" with the filename minnsota_fishing_sucks.php gets a higher priority than, say, a guide to minnesota fishing with just a plain old index.html in there. The URLs are just crazy long nowadays as people try to game the system. And it works great too. That page will just fly up the rankings.

      On top what you've listed its important to include:

      The google toolbar is spyware. The one without pagerank isnt. On top if it, very few (if any) spyware scanners will let you know.

      They do not reveal who, in fact they refuse, they are selling all their datamining stuff to. They put a non-expiring tracking cookie on everyone who uses their service to track them, preferably for life or at least the life of that computer. I wrote a little piece (with screenshots!) on how you can thwart this with firefox by removing it for good, or letting firefox only allow the cookie per session here.

      That is the price to use google. Its free, like spyware funded apps are free. Its just not a biggie to many people or they accept tracking and spyware as the price of entry. That is of course your perogative.

      They certainly arent as bad as MS, MarketScore, etc but they really get a pass on a lot of things they do. What helps is the perception that they are a great, awesome company which loves you. Regardless if that belief has much to do with reality.

      Also, I dont think the new groups interface is that bad, its just extremely dumbed down, thus the whole "google is geeks and geek friendly" might have been true at one point, but now all their work must attract the lowest common denominator as much as they can as they are now a public company and with all this competition they have to shoot for the LCD as much as possible to get more eyes on their pages than on a9 or overture. Competition is certainly good, but usually its good only for the LCD.

  3. But Google's Behind In Search Patent Competition by theodp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Google may best a9.com in the search department, but not when it comes to the patent department. Helped out by parent Amazon, a9.com boasts twenty four patent assignments (17 issued, 7 pending), while Google falls short with twenty one (8 issued, 13 pending).

  4. Hmmmm... by Alias777 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It seems that when Google does something innovative, EVERYONE follows suit. For instance, Google video, Google desktop search, Google translator, etc, etc. Some of those were actually there fist in obscure places and google found them and adapted them. Also, the issue with the algorithm in which Google ranks its pages in regular search is still under review, a la Google bomb. Try typing "Miserable Failure" in google and hitting I'm Feeling Lucky. Now, it's not that I dont agree with that statement, its that Google needs to fiddle with their search algorithm a bit. But, I still believe, Google catches the most relevant and the most results of any other serahc engine i've ever seen. And now they're coming out with Google Video, for searching what time your favorite program is on. http://www.video.google.com/ Plus the AdWords problem everyone else has mentioned.

  5. Re:Googling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Before Google I used Altavista. (When Altavista stopped supporting phrase queries, it lost all value. That's when I switched to Google.) While it would be impossible to compare the Altavista-of-then to the Google-of-now, I honestly don't feel like I have any easier a time of searching the web now than I did then.

    It's not the quality of Google's search engine that made it a verb, it's that "I just Altavista-ed for it" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

  6. No one's going to say it? by IchBinEinPenguin · · Score: 1, Interesting

    MS will win this in the medium term, they have the most $$ to throw at it, and they can skew the field by making MSN the mandatory default.
    Searchengine technology will then suck for a while.
    Eventually, a community-based project will come along and challenge MS (maybe a firefox plugin to feed a distributed page ranking system using bittorrent to sync the databases)
    Been there, done that (web-browsers, mail client, OS, word-processor etc)

  7. APIs - where's the competition? by manmanic · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Google is also the only search engine with an API, giving 3rd party developers the chance to add value to their service without violating any terms. I think they deserve serious Kudos for that and it's also a smart move - they get to pick up some great ideas fro third parties like Google Alert for tracking the web, CapeMail to get results by email, GARBO for browsing related pages and Copyscape for finding plagiarism.

    Until the other search engines release competing APIs (hopefully with a higher than 1000 query limit), Google will remain top dog from the POV of /. types.

  8. Among other things by al912912 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Neither Yahoo nor MSN provide a View as HTML option for PDFs, it's really useful when you are not so sure if that's what you want and you dan't want to wait a hell of a time for Acrobat Reader to load. Or even worse, to download it and then open it with xpdf for every file that might have some spec about some transistor.

  9. WWW Centralization by lux55 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's funny how everything in this (pseudo-)decentralized environment keeps naturally migrating towards a single central point that everything else revolves around. Not that I think this is a good or bad thing, it seems that its just a natural part of everything human to form itself into some structure resembling the state (city=net,government=google,citizens=sites), which may be also true of much of the natural world as well (galaxies, for example, are drawn together around a common object, which is similar, although the cause of it is different).

    It's almost as if, given the chance at a total level of equality, we unconsciously back away from it. Maybe equality isn't what we need or want (subconsciously speaking, of course ;)), or maybe it's too difficult (maybe it's impossible)...

    Perhaps P2P is the answer to this little late-night rant -- the example of a lasting and true decentralized system -- but seeing as how the only real mainstream applications of it have so far been illegal activities, I don't see it replacing the WWW any time soon (ie. freenet).

    Does any of this make sense, or am I just really tired? ;)

    --
    putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
  10. Re:Googling. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    You must be American.

    Even if your statement did hold true everywhere, it is different for google.

    You can go into any old store and find tissues and coke in plain sight, but you actually have to know how to find a search engine.

    I've seen a lot of inexperienced users just type google into the address bar & get me to take them to it when that doesn't work (now I just install firefox - solves that problem). I've even had people that have another search engine set as their home page do it.

  11. Google wants their own browser by mtanne · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google relies on the browser, and although, as noted, Firefox is already very Google friendly, Google is determined not to let MSFT define the battlefield. Google is big enough to take the battle to Redmond, by taking it to the desktop, starting with GMail and Google Desktop http://desktop.google.com/, then GBrowser (see whois below), then a suite of apps - Photos (Picasa), music (GTunes?), movies (GVideo?), etc. - designed to incease their desktop presence and mindshare. Then who knows, a desktop OS? (GLinux - their own version of Linux)
    It's the rational thing to do as the new 900 pound gorrilla. Hence they will hire the best they can find in each area, while still trying to maintain the support of the open source community. How users react will depend on the amount of control Google tries to exert, and how arrogant they are perceived to be.
    Whois: Domain Name: gbrowser.com Registrant:Google Inc. (DOM-1278108) 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: DNS Admin (NIC-1467103) Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 dns-admin@google.com +1.6503300100 Fax- +1.6506188571 Created on: 2004-Apr-26. Expires on: 2006-Apr-26.

  12. Re:But... by NETHED · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hmmmm.... I'm going to be modded down as flamebait or a troll, but heres my opinion anyway.

    Google is beginning to remind me of Anakin Skywalker, the cute and powerful little tyke whom everyone loves, and everyone thinks is great. But slowly, Anakin becomes a power hungry murdering black mass. For a while now, I've been hearing the Imperial March when I think of Google.

    Anyway, my 0.02

    --
    --sig fault--
  13. Anyone else bookmarking search engines? by baadger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Personally, when I first started surfing the web (c. 1997) I used Altavista. I don't remember when I first discovered Google. It was a fast change, so much so I just subconciously accepted it's superiority.

    Strange though, at some point in the last few months I've created a Search Engine folder my bookmarks and managed to fill it up... now how did that happen?

  14. quoting images?? by pbhj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is no such thing as "fair use" in the UK (and Europe AFAIK).

    I doubt that this would really fall under fair use in US as, from what I've read, that applies to re-use of copyrighted works when you have some rights to them already (quoting books, re-formatting musical works, etc.).

    This is an adaptation of an original work. It shows the initial artistic work in low quality and therefore infringes not only on the commercial rights of the "artist" but also on their moral rights!

    Consider how to prevent people buying a poster and then distributing their own postcards of that poster in competition with the original artist. Sounds like google is doing the digital equivalent.

    If copyright laws were strictly followed life would far less of a rich tapestry.

    PS: I don't see anything wrong with what google do per se, just pointing out that it seems incompatible with the law.

  15. The Tide May be Turning for Yahoo. by CristalShandaLear · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I work for a long distance company and I spend a lot of time confirming numbers people dispute on their bill (i.e. I DEEN'T CALL THES NUMBER AN IF YOU CAYANT PROVE I DE-ID, I'M GONE SEEWWW YEW SUMBEACHES).

    If we can't find a number using AnyWho, we always use Google next and I'd say 99.9% of the time this resolves the issue without having to verify the call with the term party (i.e. If that lady's daughter wasn't sleeping with my husband, my number wouldn't be on her bill).

    When Yahoo first said they weren't going to use Google anymore for their search results, I really didn't believe them. I mean it took them forever to admit what we already knew so the trust factor was a little broken.

    It took a while, but gradually the returns from searches did seem to be different or different enough. I'm like well, ok, they're on their own now, but Google still gives more or better results.

    Until recently. Lately, searching Yahoo has been like back in the 90's when I first discovered HotBot(R.I.P.) then Google. In the past month or so, I actually have found what I wanted easier and faster using Yahoo. By faster I don't really mean return speed, I'm actually referring more to the relevance of the first items returned.

    It's not every single time, but often enough and different enough where now, I don't just use Google by default anymore. I actually make a point to check both and lately Yahoo is gaining on them in turns of generating the results I need and on returning a search that's different enough from Google that's it's worth the extra time to see what Yahoo turns up as well.

    Now my searches are for very simple and every day thing. However it seems to me, it's always those small things that cause the tide to turn in the larger pool of profitability in the long run.

    I also like the new video search. To be honest, it's cut down my pr0n search time a lot. Uh, at home of course, not at work.