Mark Evans

More Competition but Google Still Dominates

Somewhat lost within all the buzz about new search engines such as Cuil, SearchMe and PowerSet is that Google’s dominance of the search market continues to grow.

According to HitWise, Google accounted for 70.77% of U.S. searches in July, compared with Yahoo (18.6%), MSN Search (5.4%) and Ask (3.5%). The reality is simple: a lot of people like Google a lot. (How’s that for insight?!)

But a more intriguing question is what’s it going to take for Google to lose market share? Clearly, the big boys of search (Microsoft and Yahoo) continue to have problems mounting a strong charge, which is why there’s so much excitement of new and unproven players such as Cuil and SearchMe.

Is it a matter of having a better user-interface? Do the search results need to be significantly better than Google, or would a worthy rival simply have to match what Google does? Should new search engines focus on verticals rather than trying to go head-to-head with Google.

And, as important, do consumers have an appetite for something other than Google? Judging by the criticism that Cuil endured during its debut, patience is clearly not a virtue within the search engine user community.

Firefox has grabbed 20% of the browser market because the open-source community developed a better mousetrap. As well, users were motivated because the dominant player was Microsoft, so Firefox was an easy way to jump on an alternative to Internet Explorer.

There has been talk about a backlash to Google’s online dominance so that’s the window of opportunity that new search engines need to leverage if they want to thrive.

My sense is there is a Firefox for the search out there but it’s ability to establish a foothold will depend on it having solid technology, search results that meet expectations (no small feat!) and the ability to position it as a new players with aspirations to meet the needs of consumers rather than going after Google - something Cuil failed miserably to do.

Technorati Tags: Google , cuil, searchme