I was tagged by King Nomar earlier today to pick a subject that my readers could develop through commenting. Since Nomar talked about how Google is starting to take over the Internet, I wanted to expand on his topic and talk about ways in which the search engine playing field can be evened (a topic that was also inspired by my latest comments on Ms. Danielle’s site regarding the Domination of the Ad Exchange Market). Before I get started with our Brainstorming session, I would like to invite Samanathon, Andy Beard, Maki, John Anthony and EastCoastLife to bring up topics on their blogs that could use the help of their communities brainpower and if they have time, comment on this upcoming topic.
Situation: Google is wiping the floor with MSN and Yahoo by claiming over 45% of the search engine market (according to the Nielsen Ratings). A big reason for the overwhelming market share is the high quality of Google Adsense and Adwords programs which have generated billions of dollars for Google and bribed, er, made Millions of dollars for publishers around the world. It also helps that Google has created a top-notch, ultra-secret & constantly changing algorithm for their search engine that no one in this world knows how to figure out.
Problem: There has been a growing backlash towards Google in the past year or so due to the complex search engine algorithms and sheer audacity to rank pages on a scale from 1 to 10. The same rankings which can cost publishers literally thousands of dollars as more and more advertising networks use the Page Rank as a metric to measure web site quality. No matter how unfair, publishers must oblige to Google’s demands since they control so much of the traffic on the web.
Solutions: This is where we need the power of this community to discuss what it’s going to take to bring Google back down to earth. Since, the two closest players with enough resources and assets to compete with Google are Yahoo and MSN, I would suggest that we brainstorm about possible tips and strategy we can offer our Google Slayers. Like the saying goes - “Competition breeds Innovation!”
Remember, we want to encourage discussion and inspire each other to build off each others thoughts, so please withhold any derogatory or disparaging remarks that do nothing for this topic.
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Hey There,
I do not know what steps Google’s competitors can take to catch up to Google but i was thinking…what if Yahoo and Baidu merged..would that create a giant capable of stopping google?
I don’t see it. You listed MSN as a competitor to Google. Microsoft’s Windows Live/MSN services are and never worth using, and that goes triple for their search. Yahoo is an interesting one though, if only for their oddball strategies to take on Google, but they have an integrated network of services.
I don’t have anything in paticular against most search engines, it’s just none of them are nearly as good as Google. The only way I can see them competing is if they can produce more relevant search results and offer more tools for it while at the same time cleaning up their User Interface.
Sebastian
Oh gosh! What am I supposed to do? haha…. Thanks for the invite. Will think about it. Busy with my projects these days.
Yahoo should build a Googleplex-type complex to get their workers motivated and creative.
No but seriously, personally, I used to use Yahoo as my search engine up until a couple of months ago. The only thing that made me go to Google is its simplistic look (though they’re trying to personalize/change that with the iGoogle). Plus, Google offers more tools, what with adsense, analytics, blogger… and they’re constantly adding more. Besides Answers, I have no clue what tools Yahoo offers people… that’s bad.
Maybe Yahoo and MSN should hire “chief culture officers” to retain the company’s unique culture and keep the employees happy.
http://news.com.com/Meet+Googles+culture+czar/2008-1023_3-6179897.html
My Problem with Yahoo extends into it’s search results relevance, the tools it offers not being nearly as useful as the ones Google has, and it’s default user interface being cluttered with junk I care very little about.
Google offers a very simple user interface, an option to personalize it (recently Google Personalized Homepage, now iGoogle and I rather like the name change) with Google Gadgets and themes.
Google Video search also makes use of Google’s aquisition of YouTube, meaning I can get my 2 favorite video sites in one place. I tried Yahoo’s search, and found it cluttered and inconsistent, for example, I would try to watch one video but it would start downloading, but if I tried to watch another it would stream, with no warning at all.
Then there is the wonderful Gmail service. I use it as my main email in addition to my personal .Mac email in Mail.app. It works great as Webmail or as part of Mail (in my highly organized System of Smart Mailboxes each and everyone of them designed to help me get through all of my Email in a timely fashion) and my only complaint would be the lack of IMAP, as most people’s complaints are.
I use Google SketchUp and Google Earth for my Architectural Design class, both applications very well designed, and Google Earth just happens to integrate with Google Maps. :-p
Then there is Google Images and Google Finance, I realize many still prefer Yahoo Finance, but I can’t understand how. It’s User Interface is ugly! And Google Image Search, which isn’t bad in it’s own right, but I still have yet to find an image search I like.
That at last leaves the 2 last Search Engines from Google I love the most. Google News Search and Google Patent Search. I study a handful of businesses around the tech world to not only understand the entire industry better, but also to understand the positions each of them is in and how they can and probably will affect the industry. These 2 search engines, one that pulls up information on a companies current business practices and newsworthy items, and the other pulling up information on their current intellectual property are absolutely priceless.
As I said before, MSN/Windows Live is not a relevant competitor, but if Yahoo can top each and every one of these services then I would gladly switch (well, I could never switch from Earth/SketchUp, :-p) to their services.
You want ideas? What for? So you can turn them over just so Google won’t be the better search engine? That’s rebellion for the sake of rebellion, and if Yahoo can’t beat Google in the free market then I have absolutely no advice to give them. What many people forget is that Google isn’t an actual monopoly. Yahoo and any other search provider is a click away. You can even mix and match search engines from different companies to your liking (I tend to standarize on a single platform, except for Technorati, Amazon, and eBay, but Inqusitor takes care of all of my needs) and the reason people use Google is because people generally find it’s uncluttered designed far better than the junk that greets you on Yahoo or MSN, the results (hint: The most important thing) are far more relevant with enough supporting services (Co-op, Maps, News, etc.) to keep it that way.
It does not matter how Google finds information I’m looking for as long as it finds the information I’m looking for. Bring on the Pagerank.
Sebastian
The thing I do not like about Google and Yahoo is, that they do not recognize documents with similar content. It happens often on the Web that a post or document is spread out over more then 50 websites. Now that is great for the author but not for the searcher because it blows up your search result unnecessarily. With InfoCodex this will not happen because the linguistical database recognizes similar documents and puts them into groups. This does not blow up your search result unnecessarily. InfoCodex Procedure
Learnt anything from the “Digg” lesson? Bring them down to Earth, the way people brought Digg down. But what would we get out from it?
I think that one great way to get one over on google would be to introduce a program which competes with Adsense and Adwords, and which actually has some form of quality control. There are too many sites using Adwords which are of terrible quality, or, worse, that are actually advertising entirely falsely.
For example, see the problems I have had with a certain Adwords advertiser… and his ‘attorney’…
http://www.24hourtrading.co.uk/blog/2007/05/01/the-get-google-ads-free-site-is-a-complete-scam/
Yahoo’s problem is that they’re a portal rather than a search engine. There’s too much Yahoo stuff on their homepage which translates into Yahoo properties traffic rather than search traffic.
MSN is the same. Live is getting away from that, but Microsoft has a long way to go.
The only way to beat Google is to get people to use Yahoo and Live search more. Promote those and get those 2 companies to promote their search services rather than their portal offerings and the weight will start to shift.
Well, that’s one idea anyway
Well, I do not want to harm Google or Yahoo I just want a better search technology for the User of the Internet. How it works. I believe this can only be done with a linguistical database.
I’m sorry. I think Yahoo and MSN should focus on content. MSN can afford to take a hit financially, but Yahoo cannot. It needs to integrate its properties and open up more API.
But then again, I’ve always been a fan of the fantasy sports myself.
Yep, I like your comparison with the Japanese car companies. The Japanese always find a real new way to drive innovation!
http://pipes.yahoo.com is not bad and seems to work better for me then the Custom Google Search. I also like Flickr.
I don’t think they can compete with Google, they need to come up with something different, something that will impact the online world, possibly by adding a new dimension to online advertising.
Don’t ask me what it could be, otherwise I’d sell the idea, but they definately need something innovative. Copying and challenging Google at their own game will not work.
[…] garry lee wants to “beat google”. the other day he posted this article of his where he explains why the interneters should brainstorm an innovative strategy to beat […]
How about this-
Tip #1 to beating Google: Merge Yahoo and Microsoft.
Unfortunately, my dealings with Yahoo lead me to believe that Yahoo is overly compartmentalized and has become like any other faceless corporation, e.g. Microsoft. Instead of focusing on being innovative, they look to buy smaller, more nimble companies with attractive, one-of-a-kind Web properties.
In short, it’s not a cool Web start-up anymore. And that’s too bad.