Google Dominates Search Market Where Competitors Are Too Tiny To Be David!

July 29, 2010

When you talk about dominance, numbers speak louder than pages of reports written. Google, the name itself defines a Goliath in the search market and latest numbers seal its reputation. The search giant shares a gargantuan 90.5% of the market share and an even mind boggling 98.29% mobile search market share.

The numbers leave very less for the competitors in the arena, which includes Yahoo, Bing and others less notable search providers. the numbers are as follows for others:

Yahoo: 3.91% Search Market Share – and 0.8% Mobile search market share.

Microsoft Bing: 3.74% Search Market- and 0.46% Mobile search Share

The graph explains a whole lot more than I can ever express: an absolute dominance of Google over everyone else. The data compiled by Pingdom takes both the non-mobile search and the mobile search shares and the red bar isn’t the summed up data of both.

What is to learn for others here? First and foremost: you can’t beat Google, not now and not in the future. The reason for this superiority? Early adoption and emphasis on one category: search, you won’t find Google trying interactive pages, awesome background pictures, integrating all sorts of useless stuff on the main search page and making Google.com a destination/portal. That is exactly what people have loved about it, when they visit Google they are sure of doing what they are on the site for: Search unlike Yahoo for once. I can’t recall when was the last time I visited Yahoo.com for anything? It is flooded with all sorts of crap and search is just one aspect of it.

All in all, Google and search are synonymous to each other and despite all sorts of [legal] troubles Google has been into, it has been the best with what it started off with; plain old search.

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Posted by TechPulse 360

[Video] Google Redesigns Images Search Engine With A Microsoft Bing Look

July 20, 2010

Google is holding a special event today in San Francisco to highlight the upcoming features for its Search Engine with a primary focus on Image Search alone.

Reports are already rolling out of the new design for the image search, which, not surprisingly is quite similar to the more visual interface of Bing from Microsoft. Of course that doesn’t mean Google is copying the entire design.

Before I go any further, it is important I share an astonishing fact on Google Images. The search engine began with 250 million images when it launched Image Search, that number has now soared to over 10 billion images to date. That number is obviously the translation of images that are publicly available for the Google to crawl through and index.The image search registers more than a billion pages a day as visitors make a stop and search for numerous things, from pictures of Hurricane Katrina, destruction of the Haiti Earthquake, to products they are interested in buying and celebrities. Not surprisingly, Google Images has a picture for every search you make [almost].

The event started off with Marissa Myers, the VP at Google Search Product and User Experience before she handed the charge of stage to Nate Smith, PM, Google Images. Nate demonstrated numerous features and functionality of the search engine; switching between different image types, searching for similar images and the power the interface adds to the Image search. The results were previously shown with thumbnails along with text descriptions for each, however the redesign would remove them entirely and replace them with more images and the descriptions can be viewed as you hover over each thumbnail.

In my humble opinion, that is visually more pleasant and giving more sense to the phrase “image search”. Users will now be able to view up to a thousand images on a single page of results. Upon clicking on the image itself you are shown a larger preview for the image, instead of nesting the thumbnail in a frame sitting atop the main link. That is pretty intelligent, compared to the senseless frame that sat on the top and users had to perform multiple clicks to actually learn if the image is the right size and quality or wait for the entire page to load at an original location.

Google also announced the new Image Search Ads, which would enable users to run their own image as an advertisement on Image Search. Something we will be talking about in further detail in future.

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Posted by TechPulse 360

Google Unveils Real-Time Search With Twitter, Facebook Feeds

December 7, 2009

Earlier today, Google unveiled its real-time plans to add Facebook, MySpace and Twitter feeds to its search engine; catching up with Microsoft’s Bing that unveiled similar features last week in an event in San Francisco, Calif.

Here are Google’s 5 new real-time search features:

  1. “Latest results” on Google search;
  2. “Latest” search option;
  3. “Updates” search option;
  4. “Latest results” on mobile;
  5. and “Hot topics” on Google Trends.

Follows the video of Google’s real-time search event hosted at the Computer History Museum in in Mountain View:

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Posted by TechPulse 360

Google, Microsoft Update Search Engines

December 1, 2009

Google invites media for a search engine update next week

Update: Here’s Microsoft’s post on Bing’s new features.

The Web search race between Google and Microsoft is kicking up a notch this week, as both companies expect to update their search engine.

First, Microsoft which is having a press event in San Francisco, Calif., tomorrow to unveil new features to its service.

And next Monday, Google is hosting its own media event in Mountain View – but not at its usual tiny packed room at the Googleplex – but at another ex-SGI building: the Computer History Museum.

“It’s an event you won’t want to miss,” reads the invitation.

This is Google’s second major event in 3 weeks, following the ChromeOS briefing and just a week before its traditional Holiday party for the media!

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Posted by TechPulse 360

Baidu Giving Google Fits In China

August 3, 2009

Baidu, the upstart Chinese search engine, is giving Google a run for its money in the world’s most populous country.

In June, the 9-year-old company passed Google in market share for the first time, riding a head of stream.

Baidu edges out Google in China, according to Net Applications (Baidu share in blue)

Baidu edges out Google in China, according to Net Applications (Baidu share in blue)

The switch in leadership illustrates how intense of a two-horse race the Chinese market has become. Yahoo trails in a very distant third place.

According to Net Applications, Baidu had 51 percent of the market at the end of the month compared with Google’s 44 percent. Yahoo had 1.6 percent and Microsoft, less 0.9 percent.

“Baidu is on a major growth curve” and benefiting as Chinese users migrate from Google, Net Applications says.

Baidu now accounts for 9 percent of global search usage (topping Microsoft). It will prove a formidable foe for Google.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Users Of Online Search Becoming More Sophisticated

July 17, 2009

Most of the buzz in the online search space has been about Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine.

The improvements in Bing, or so the common wisdom goes, will help Microsoft better compete with market leader Google.

Search queries are becoming more complex and longer, says Google

Search queries are becoming more complex and longer, says Google

But the praise being heaped on Bing may be diverting attention from an even more important industry development: that search users are becoming rapidly more sophisticated, and engines of all types are having a difficult time keeping up.

So far the Bing magic hasn’t played out in the market. According to comScore, Bing did give Microsoft a modest boost in the June rankings. Its market share grew 0.4 points to 8.4 percent. But the gain came entirely from Yahoo, not Google.

Google held its own, with its share unchanged at 65 percent. Yahoo slumped 0.5 points to a 19.6 percent share.

That may have something to do with growing consumer expectations. On a conference call Thursday evening, Google Senior Vice President Jonathan Rosenberg said the company has noticed power users are running more complex searches with longer queries and higher expectations.

He said Google has tried to respond with its new options feature.  But much more needs to be done in the realm of adding personalization and intelligence to search responses.

“Search is still an unsolved problem,” says Google CEO Eric Schmidt.  So running hard with new products is a little like standing in place. The target keeps moving.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Microsoft Targets Vertical Search With Bing

June 18, 2009

With Bing, Microsoft argues it is not only creating yet another search engine, but also helping users “accomplishing their tasks,” like buying a plane ticket or shop.

40% of users queries go unanswered

To do so, the computer giant’s latest “decision” engine employs semantic technologies to both try to make sense of the content of Web pages and the users’ queries.

“We use the term semantic technologies in a more loosely fashion than some would,” said Mark Johnson, Microsoft’s Senior Program Manager for Bing (and formerly at startup Powerset acquired by Microsoft) speaking this week at the Semantic Technology Conference in San Jose, Calif.

For Johnson, vertical search is what really matters for users, not a series of blue links or search results spit out by the search engine.

Microsoft plans to expand the number of verticals (to perhaps around a dozen) that it now offers with Bing (travel, shoping, news, maps).

Follows a video excerpt of our conversation with Johnson at the Semantic Technology Conference:

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Bing Sees Traffic Growth But Are The Search Gains At Microsoft Temporary

June 17, 2009

Microsoft’s new Bing search engine continues to attract new search traffic to the company.

Bing sees a traffic bounce for a second week

Bing sees a traffic bounce for a second week

But is that traffic boost temporary or permanent? So far the early data suggests the interest in the search engine is persisting.

According to comScore, Microsoft’s share of the U.S. online search market rose to 12.1 percent for the work week ending June 12.

This is up from 9.1 percent at the end of May, before Bing’s launch two weeks ago.

Last week’s traffic showed an increase over the search engine’s first week of operation, when it captured an 11.1 percent market share.

Google is the leader in the market with more than 60 percent of search queries.

Microsoft executives must so far be pleased with the introduction. But they will be watching the share numbers for the coming weeks closely to see how much of the traffic is due to initial experimentation.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

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