Google getting competition already
- Posted by Kati on February 17th, 2004 filed in mktg brainlog
A few months ago, when the Google IPO news broke, i was enthusiastic and excited and thought i’d definitely buy Google stock when they go public. Today, i am not so sure. Google’s quality service hasn’t changed a thing, but the market is changing rapidly and now it’s not so sure that Google will still be the king of search a year from now.
Add to the MSN, Yahoo and Microsoft search news stories a new Media Metrix study, which shows that searchers are not as loyal to their favourite search engine as everybody thought they were. (Including me.)
“To measure people’s loyalty to search engines, ComScore compared the average number of times people conducted a search in December with the average number of searches at Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN. On average, those surveyed searched 28 times in the month. Google users came closest to that average, searching the site about 23 times. Yahoo and AOL users searched an average of 16 times, and MSN users 11 times.
That suggests that people commonly turn to alternatives for search results. And Yahoo and MSN have an opportunity to turn drive-by searchers into loyalists.”
Ever since discovering Google in their beta time, i haven’t used a single other engine, not ONCE, but looks like the average web surfer is playing the search game differently. Sure, they are loyal to Google, but *if* Yahoo or MSN or Whoever designs a better search engine, and beats Google’s service, the searcher will notice and they will most likely move. The old cliche about your competitor being only one click away is still true…
And another interesting stat from the article: “About 60 percent of people on MSN aren’t using search–if they promote it, there’s a good chance they’ll get trial.”
They also mention that personalization - especially with Yahoo and MSN getting in the game - will play a huge part in building loyalty among search engine customers. (I have discussed Google’s first attempts at personalization in recent entries, see here and here.)
It will be an interesting year in search, that’s for sure.