Google Still Rules Search Industry

Google Still Rules Search Industry

Some things in the world remain constant, all politician’s and bankers are self-serving greedy so and so. Another thing that not changed since well almost since the Internet began, Google still rules search industry.  The gap by which Google surpasses it nearest rivals Yahoo and Bing ( which are now the same thing ) is so large that it is greater than the two nearest rivals put together.

Google King of Search

The latest study concerning search engine market share  was released from Experian Hitwise, Google’s ongoing dominance of Search was confirmed as clear as day follows night, white with the following quote: “Google accounted for 66.05 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending July 30, 2011. The combined Bing-powered search comprised 28.05 percent of searches for the month, with Yahoo! Search and Bing receiving 14.49 percent and 13.19 percent, respectively.”

Not forgetting the other search engines, ( yes there are others outside the top 3)  Experian states is currently around 73 engines, only control about less than six percent of all Internet searches.

The “Google it” phenomenon

Ask anyone to name a search engine and almost everyone will say Google, this is part of the incredible presence holds over the modern psyche like when you say to a friend or spouse oh just “Google it” . Considering Google’s size and the value of the income it generates this news of its continued dominance should come as no great surprise.  Experian manages to spin a positive out of the results for the closet rivals. Take the following quote for instance:
Yahoo! Search and Bing achieved the highest success rates in July 2011. This means that for Yahoo! Search, more than 81.36 percent of searches executed resulted in a visit to a Website. Google achieved a success rate of 68 percent, an increase of 1 percent in July 2011. The share of unsuccessful searches highlights the opportunity for both the search engines and marketers to evaluate the search engine result pages to ensure that searchers are finding relevant information.

That’s maybe the case but when you consider Google has far many more searches per month then the fail rate of searches is bound to be far higher. Again, the sample size used in these stats need to be taken into account. The smaller the sample size the larger the degree of variability, something stated quite clear in Wikipedia’s entry concerning Sample size determination: Larger sample sizes generally lead to increased precision when estimating unknown parameters.

For the argument to be valid the number of searchs would have to be the same across both Google and Bing/Yahoo to make the statement more reliable. If the two groups were of the same size and the Bing /Yahoo grouping was still achieving higher click through then that would be something worth looking at further. As is the findings about click through to sites are little more than meaningless, as the unbalanced comparison is not based on level variables.

Google is top dog and is constantly evolving and helping to drive the evolution of Search technology, having recognising  the the need to evolve to constantly strive to be the best search engine delivering the best content. Especially in the face of recently new threats posed from Facebook and Bing it will be sometime before Google is challenged for the title of King of Search.

Yahoo just been put up for sale “In addition to firing CEO Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s board has now put the company up for sale.”