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Gap Between Google and Competition Widening
eldavojohn writes "Business Week has up an article trying to explain why it is getting harder and harder to 'catch' Google in the search engine game. We've heard of many different kinds of search engines and many different companies entering the market but: '... Google keeps gaining share in the face of newly launched capabilities on other engines. In August, Google sites gained 6.8 percentage points of search share from a year earlier, according to researcher comScore Media Metrix. Meantime, Yahoo lost 1 percentage point, Microsoft's sites lost 3.3 percentage points, and Ask.com lost one-half of a percentage point.' All of this on the heels of recent news that A9 scaled back its features. Is it possible to think of a number better than a one with a hundred zeros behind it?"
Meta will eat itself
The Google-plex!
It's odd that people should say Google are widening the gap... Google's certainly the best, but lately I've been noticing a lot more search results that lead to pages that don't load, or result in 404s (in fact, a domain I used to run 3 years ago is still in Google's index).
Is google not removing ages from their index to try and seem impressive, or getting lax with recrawling sites? Or am I the only one noticing this?
Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
Inertia is a powerful thing, people tend to not change services unless the one they are using has serious flaws, or a new one with a "must have" feature shows up.
Unless someone comes up with a revolutionary feature for search engines, Google won't be losing terrain any time soon.
Fabio Aquotte
To me, more and more Google is a tiresome chore -- you have to make stuff work with it, but searches are hugely hampered by blogs, aggregators, search engine traps, link farms and so on to the point where:
If I want to find out about some general topic, I use wikipedia.
If I want to find out about a specific thing, I use a site such as riskglossary or MSDN.
If I want detailed facts, I use a bookshop, still as true today as it was before teh n3t started.
If I'm looking for a line from a half-remembered song, I use google.
In other words, google is strong when you want 'something that contains text X' but not strong for 'a page that describes 'X''. And Google's attempts to preserve quality can actually become a nightmare -- that's how Search Engine Optimization got to be a big business.
I like google and I use google, but to me, the days when it was my one-stop shop for absolutely every visit to the web are long gone.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Google have won this round of the search engine game. As far as keyword search goes, there is no reason for me to switch. They're free, they're fast, they almost always get the info I'm looking for in the first couple of links. There is simply no incentive to change. Unless google feck up (start to support wars/slavery so it becomes political, add one feature too many, finally stop with the search results and just returns ads)
However, its not sewn up. What I really want is a search engine that actually understands what I'm asking for. Rather than a library index, what I want is a librarian. The company that get that right will be the overal winners... but thats decades away - and I imagine it will come from left field, just like Google did.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I dont think so. Google operates in a field where the switching cost to the user is zero. If GOOG does not deliver, it is extremely easy for the user to switch to a competing search engine. So I dont feel threatened by GOOG. But MSFT monopoly was created by increasing the switching cost to the user. It realized long before its customers, the key to revenue is lock them in. MSFT effectively confused interoperability with IBM-PC compatibility and later Windows compatibility and got bulk of the users locked in. As long as it prices its products, mainly MS Office a tad less than what it would cost the corporations to switch t a competing product they will keep raking money in. And they use the money to make sure that the playing field does not get leveled ever again.
So GOOG can keep its only if it constantly innovates and provides a better service than its competitor. As long as there is competitive pressure on a company, I dont begrudge any billions they rake in. But I strongly resent even pennies made by unfair companies that do not have the burden of competition. Cable monopolies, electicity utilities, MSFT, teacher unions, anyone who found a way to dodge the pressure of competition irks me. Because I am under so much pressure to constantly learn and fight off competitors 20 years younger than me who are gunning for my job.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
but the domain name is so long noone ever uses it
No, successs and being the best isn't wrong. Using your success and money to oppress others through unethical business practices is. There is a huge difference. Staying on top because you have a great product is one thing. Staying on top because you can quash others unfairly is another.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/