Can Google Push Users To Yahoo & Msn? Options

[anthonyparsons.c...]

With the recent bouts from Google with another update, and more emphasis on Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) and now rumoured higher emphasis on ageing and time delay, do you think there is an end? Is it possible that Google make it so difficult to manipulate their results, that the webmaster community simply up and shift to focus on Yahoo and MSN?

Danny Sullivan himself stated within an SEW member article, "when I looked at LSI as raised this time last year, my feeling was that for most site owners, even if it was being used, you'd have little control over influencing it". How true is that? Spot on IMO. It is becoming harder and harder for SEO's to manipulate sites to favour Google results, thus the webmasters and businesses themselves may just shift focus onto the other two main engines.

What impact could this have?

[Martin C]

With the webmasters and businesses themselves may just shift focus onto the other two main engines.

Unfortunately for them it's not their call - if the main customer base is still using Google then Google is where the businesses need to be. People will only move away from Google when they feel there is a better way of finding what they are looking for. The webmasters and businesses are I'm sure trying to rate well in all search engines.

[leadegroot]

Yep, webmasters and SEOs aren't the user - the users are the boys and girls in the land of the evil daystar who put the queries into the search engines.
As long as they choose to use Google, we will be forced to follow.

[Jill]

I'm sure Google would love for webmasters to shift their focus off of them.

But what's that got to do with users?

[Randy]

if the main customer base is still using Google then Google is where the businesses need to be.

And it's a huge If in that assumption, one that many seem to make because they're functioning on old data and because most have been totally Google-centric for the last several years. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Does anybody else get and read Wired? They have a rather neat article re: Yahoo in the March edition. I snuck over to the online version of the mag and it looks like the full article is going to be available to peruse online Tuesday, March 1. It really is a good read.

I normally wouldn't post this since I can't link to the source for attribution, but here's one small quote just to whet your appetite for what you'll see here the first part of next week...

A recent survey by research firm Keynote Systems found that the number of users who consider Yahoo! their primary search engine increased by more than 20 percent in the past year.  And more than 81 percent of Yahoo! users said they plan to keep using the site.  A comScore Media Metrix study put it even more bluntly.  In the second half of 2004, Yahoo! increased its share of the search market from 27 percent to 32 percent, while Google dropped from 37 to 35 percent -- putting the two companies in a virtual dead heat.

Oh, and an early Happy Birthday to Yahoo! too. It makes me feel old to realize that they're celebrating their 10th birthday on March 2nd!

This post has been edited by Randy: Feb 26 2005, 12:18 PM

[McFox]

IMHO, Google are a bubble ready to burst. Some may say they are already leaking, for example with their latest "Autolink" feature which is already provoking vigourous opposition from many people -- Zeldman's take on it. That's just the beginning of that row, too.

Then there is/was their useless desktop search (beta) which delivers the same sort of results from a user's computer as is delivered from the internet search, which is fine if you only have two or three results but absolutely useless when the desktop search returns hundreds. Who after all, wants to hunt through endless pages of results to find the right document from their own computer? You wouldn't do it on the net.

Google appear to have lost their way a little. Short term, there are enough tricks pulled out of the hat to keep the share price out of freefall but over the longer journey I doubt they can sustain it.

Adjusting the algo to bring 'educational' and 'authority' sites to the top of the rankings wasn't just Google 'doing no evil' -- imho it was a platform to increase revenue from Adwords since the paying advertiser is the one who needs their site to be visible in the listings. Letting that big piggy-bank slip away because your algo was already listing the advertiser's site highly was almost like Google paying the advertiser.

And this is where Google are going to run into trouble, because what attracted people to the search engine in the first place was the relevance of their results and the noticable lack of shove-it-down-your-throat advertising. To boost revenue, that magical formula had to be altered.

With Microsoft now beginning to promote themselves as the new 'born-again evil-slayers' of the internet by pushing out XP SP2, announcing the new, security conscious IE7 as well as beta testing the powerful Microsoft Antispyware, the user's perceptions of both organisations are going to change.

Throw in Microsoft's considerable ability to market it's own products and we will see a considerable swing in their direction in the next 18 months and much of that will be down to Google losing it's whiter-than-white reputation, mostly by it's own hand and deed.

[Jill]

Now if Google were really smart, they'd have microsoft buy them, and then they could blame them for their ultimate demise! (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Randy]

(IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/hysterical.gif) Jill !

I think that particular ship has already sailed.

[sweepthelegnate]

I'm seeing AskJeeves commercials here at a pretty good clip at least three a day. That might snatch them up a few google loyalists. of course if google is indeed driving users away, the french might drive them back

Already at the pointy end of French court decisions favoring French firms that sued Google, the dominant search engine now faces French accusations that its plan to digitize the contents of major libraries constitutes an act of "crushing domination" over non-Anglo-Saxon culture. The head of France's national library said Google's choice of works to digitize will naturally favor American, and heaven forbid, British, culture. He called on the E.U. to start its own competitive effort.

[anthonyparsons.c...]

I guess its a little catch 22 situation. Is a search engine better when the results are manipulated by webmasters and site experts alike to atleast provide some sort of assemblence within the top rankings? Or is it better to let the search engines derive what is best by making the algorithm so damn hard to manipulate, all you can do is build your site and leave the rest to the Google God?

As a user, I want what I'm looking for quickly. I guess the fact of the matter comes down to, can Google supply such quality if webmasters and experts alike cannot provide relevant sites to show up for relevant queries? Yer sure, we all know that sites are tainted to show up for non-relevant terms, but in the most part, most major services have fixed that problem to some extent, though still allow the capability to show related results.

IMO, Google are balancing on that rope at present, nearly ready to trip up and hurt themselves.

[anthonyparsons.c...]

I like those figures Randy. Google must be getting slightly concerned when they no longer have the LEAD as such... and are more an equal now!

[Randy]

Actually, G and T! are not exactly equal Anthony. Only in the search numbers were the Yahoo! folks lagging, and they've obviously been taking steps to correct that oversight.

The above was just one very small part of the article, even then it was buried in the middle. Like I mentioned above, it's a really good article that reminded me of a lot of things I'd forgotten over the years. It'll be an especially enlightening read for those who weren't around in the early years.

For instance, did anyone realize (or remember) that Yahoo actually holds more patents than Google? Not just a few more, but 10 times as many. And that they made more money and had more visitors every month than Google? If you just read the press clippings over the past few years you certainly wouldn't believe that to be the truth.

For those who have been so Google-centric over the past several years the article is going to be a bit of an eye opener me thinks.

FTR, I think you're probably right that the guys and gals at the Googleplex are more than a tad concerned. Coming off of their recent dominance, they now find themselves squarely between a Rock (Yahoo, which had a headstart) and a Hard Place (Microsoft with its ambitions and bottomless pockets). How they respond to the situation over the next 12-18 months is going to determine if they're still a player 5 years down the road.

[Randy]

Quickie update...

The Yahoo! article is available at Wired.com now. Don't miss the Story Images along the left side. They actually add information.

[Hyperformance]

I recognize that we as marketers are not the general surfing audience (we are an exception!), but personally I am part of the statistic rise in both MSN and Yahoo! - As I stated last year, Google has lost relevancy (IMO), and I am quite happy with the new MSN results... Yahoo! results are not terrible either (lately).

I find Google shifted right along with their bank account... the concern is not so much the surfer as it is the vendor. I'm with McFox on the Google Bubble (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/thumbup1.gif)

I still believe "Joe Surfer" cares more about their results, than "they" care about the paid ads all over. Without drastic changes on the Google side, I think we will see this trend continue - as it is already well started.

[Michael]

For what its worth I've been everywhere in the last year with regards to who is most relevant. For the last while my confidence has been restored in G, with respect going to MSN. Yahoo, IMO has had the weakest results of the three and are slowest to update their Database which I find weak on their part.

Regarding pushing people away. My take is slightly different. What I wonder now is if it only takes one engine to make a shift toward some kind of filter/algo change to have it be relvanet across the board. For example, if Google makes a shift to LSI that makes it harder to manipulate rankings, and you as an SEO have to optimize for G because G matters, then presumable your site will be a better site in all the engines...

Sort of interesting effect....it may mean MSN and Yahoo! can stay away from some Algo changes (like LSI) and rely on others changes that require differnent optimation techniques (in case you have not noticed, we are seeing this already). The end result? The best sites win and SEO is harder to manipulate, which is probably best for the end user...