Is Google’s dominance in search under threat from the “upstarts”?
Posted to: Google, News, News Stories, Search
By Mark O’Neill
An article in Newsweek magazine suggests that Google’s position at the top of the search engines could be under serious threat by competitors, including some governments who are prepared to invest a lot of serious cash to develop their own alternatives to Google. It seems that Google’s position at the top is not as secure as everyone thought.
The problems seem to hinge on the fact that Google returns too many irrelevant results whereas the smaller competitors are able to deliver more focused results. Quintura is mentioned as an example of such a search engine. In a world where people are fickle and choosy when it comes to the internet, Google coulf suddenly find itself knocked off its pedestal by a rival that is better able to deliver what the internet user wants.
If you think I or the article are exaggerating, take the example offered by the Newsweek article. Altavista was the hot search engine of the 1990’s - and look how far and fast they fell when Google came along. Is history about to repeat itself? Will a small “upstart” search engine come along and ruin Google’s day?
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Liked the post, but I think the Internet and Google has come a long way since the early 90’s. They’ve grown into an Internationally recognised brand, where people will often say ‘I’ll google them’ to find out more about people. I believe Google will be around for a while, and whilst upstarts like the ones you’ve mentioned may take traffic, I don’t believe they’ll push ‘the big G’ from the top spot.
Even if Google’s search engine became irrelevant, Google would still rock and be tremendously important. Look at the pioneering they have done in so many other areas.
agreed Nick, we’ve got nothing to worry about for a while.
dave, I know what you mean, but I’m not sure pioneering = success.