

Google Still winning search wars, Microsoft big loser - coglethorpe
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/18/google-shows-healthy-january-growth-in-us-search-volume/

======
jwesley
I was about to leave a comment about how this isn't really news. It feels like
every search market share update for the past few years has been the same -
Google gains, everyone else loses or stands still.

I love Google's search product, but this trend is deeply troubling. Websites
live off of search visitors, and you wonder as the Google monopoly grows
stronger and they feel the pressure to increase quarterly earnings, how they
might try to siphon off even more of the search traffic for their own profit.
With no other alternatives, it could mean bad things for the web.

~~~
enomar
Can you explain what "they might try to siphon off even more of the search
traffic for their own profit" means? How does one siphon off search traffic?
By building a better product?

~~~
jwesley
Google could siphon off traffic by adding more ads, integrating direct lead
generation forms, or funneling visitors toward Google products. For example,
take a look at the search results examined in this blog post:

[http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/google-stops-showing-search-
resul...](http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/google-stops-showing-search-results-for-
certain-queries/1947/)

------
kailashbadu
I don’t begrudge Google continuing it’s march up the popularity. I don’t see
anything wrong with that.

I don't find it troubling either. At least not right away. It would be
troubling if 1) Google uses unfair means to increase it’s dominance. If
company produces a great product and everyone flock to it, you can’t really
bitch that. 2) If Google uses it’s dominance in search market to shut out
competition in other market.

~~~
mdasen
I think part of the issue isn't that Google is doing evil so much as once you
get a certain market-share, it causes problems. People generally don't care
because the problems that are happening aren't problems for end-users; they're
problems for advertisers.

If Google becomes the only game in town for search, their ad rates will rise
simply because advertisers won't have another outlet for search advertising.
Likewise, ad rates at Yahoo are suffering today since the mindset is always to
advertise on Google and the greater competition in Google's ad auctions make
their pricing a lot higher. Personally, I find it a good reason not to run ads
on Google (since it's cheaper for the same thing), but if Google's dominance
keeps going up, it's going to cause problems.

So, even if Google does nothing, by getting to a certain size (compared to the
overall size of the market), it causes problems. Of course, I'd much rather
Google in that position than Microsoft <<shudder>>.

I don't begrudge Google either - they've acted as good corporate citizens
offering a wonderful service. However, even if you're good and doing nothing
wrong doesn't mean that problems don't arise.

