Google is going to die -- A discussion on Y! and MSN Beta.

[Refrozen]

With the new and upcoming MSN beta looking so successful, and Microsoft's drive to kill Google before it gets to the Epic 2014 state (:P) do you think Yahoo/MSN will kill Google?

I have a feeling Google has already peaked and is now on their way down the slide, but, I'd like to hear some other opinions, maybe some people who have been alive a little longer, and been more mature at the age of Yahoo's peak. :D

[Refrozen]

For those who don't know what I mean by Yahoo!'s peak, I mean back when they had the awesome commercials:

"Do you Yahooooooooooooouuoooo!?"

[symetrix]

My opinion twards Google is based entirely on my rankings.

If my site is ranking highly, they are obviously returning relvevent results and I wish them the best of luck.

If my site is no where to be found in G, obviously they aren't doing a very good job and I want users to go elsewhere.

That is the opinion of every SEO here, some will however sugarcoat it more. :cool:

[lorien1973]

I know when I want to search for something, first thing I do is go to MSN, fight to close that shockwave popup that inevitably appears (with the almost inperceptible close button), find the search box, type in my phrase, then when the results appear, I scroll down past the half page of sponsored links to find my information.

I'd much rather do that than go to the google homepage, type my search and find what I'm looking for.

[debunked]

My opinion twards Google is based entirely on my rankings.

If my site is ranking highly, they are obviously returning relvevent results and I wish them the best of luck.

If my site is no where to be found in G, obviously they aren't doing a very good job and I want users to go elsewhere.

That is the opinion of every SEO here, some will however sugarcoat it more. :cool:
A prize for the honest person - now to get Anthony to admit this is why he hates google - (sorry Anthony, had to get you in this thread somehow.)

[Matts]

Try:
http reference

http://beta.search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=http+reference&FORM=QBRE

Way off

[anthonycea]

If Google continues to be the fastest gun in the west picking up content by spidering sites quicker and gets those results in the index faster than anyone else, they are in little danger.

When some websites get 90% of their search engine traffic from Google and little from Yahoo or MSN then Google is in no danger at all.

I do not hate Google, they are very innovative and have superior technology and more traffic than the rest, I have had issues with them when they favored one of my competitors and when I complained about it they punished me, but since then I have seen that they rank some of my other sites fairly.

The bottom line is this, you have to play the game to have a chance to win, if Google is the only game in town you have to play by their rules or you will never hit a home run or win the world series.

The problem that most webmasters have with Google is that they keep changing the rules in the middle of the game for many different reasons that most do not understand.

[symetrix]

they keep changing the rules in the middle of the game

They are doing a good job of pissing off the people who make up 75% of their bottom line (adsense). This is the only real fault I see in G.

[anthonycea]

It is their game to lose, they make the rules, we are just little guys that depend on them until something better comes around.

Google is good for the computing industry, lest Microsoft take over and put a microchip in your forehead to log on.

IBM is the company to watch and I think Google and IBM will be one company one day.

[Matts]

They are doing a good job of pissing off the people who make up 75% of their bottom line (adsense). This is the only real fault I see in G.
75% of their bottom line is adwords. Adsense is a cost center. Adwords is a profit center. So while adsense spreads the reach, they'd probably do just fine without the problems it causes and Google might find they have more trouble with adsense then it's worth to them because of fraudulent clicks. Note Googles' message last week about the risk of fraudulaent clicks to the business model. It's the affililates and advertising competitors that benefit from fraudulent clicks, so it will be interesting to see how it settles out.

As long as Google continues to serve THE relevant result, they will be the dominant SE. IHO they still beat the MSN beta (although I like where I sit in MSN).

[kc3]

Hm... I don't know if there is reason for it too. I mean, so many people trust Google, when google falls it will be when they give up on it. Or VERY slowly people lose interest. I don't think they'll fall any time soon.

[amberstar702]

I don't like it when one search engine has so much POWER! Google can giveth and Google can taketh away. :eek:

[Refrozen]

I don't like it when one search engine has so much POWER! Google can giveth and Google can taketh away. :eek:
That's my outlook on it,

Currently, Google could kill every one of us who recieves a good amount of traffic from them (a lot of us). They could put us out of business just by looking at us, they have too much power.

Well, that isn't true -- if we can't innovate we shouldn't be in this business, but you get my point.

[Refrozen]

Hm... I don't know if there is reason for it too. I mean, so many people trust Google, when google falls it will be when they give up on it. Or VERY slowly people lose interest. I don't think they'll fall any time soon.
Btw, two ways to improve your site KC3... on mouse over on those links don't make them disappear in to the background, and change your body font, leaving default font isn't 'pretty' in most people opinions.

[kc3]

They shouldn't. What browser are you using? I'm using Internet Explorer and all my friends and most people using it are using either Internet Explorer and Netscape and the text links don't disapear into the background with them. And which website are you talking about? I'm assuming Freeminz.com, though it might be FindMyWebHost.org.

[Refrozen]

They shouldn't. What browser are you using? I'm using Internet Explorer and all my friends and most people using it are using either Internet Explorer and Netscape and the text links don't disapear into the background with them. And which website are you talking about? I'm assuming Freeminz.com, though it might be FindMyWebHost.org.
Freeminz + Firefox 1.0. The links go white (same as the background) on hover.

[xml]

kc3, your CSS is wrong, you use: background-color=#000000, it should be, background-color: #000000.

[T0PS3O]

Just because two new grilfriends show up, doesn't mean the current 'old' one doesn't deserve any attention :D

They have my loyalty for now and I predict they will keep the fast mojority of marketshare for a long time. Google is everywhere. Until Y and M come with a decent API and functionality, the can only rely on their own domains and hardly get the brand out.

[Las Vegas Homes]

Just my 2 cents. Consumers dont have 1/100 of the knowledge that most here on this forum have about search engines. Consumers will use what the marketing giants point them to. With MSN releasing the search function in MSN messenger and also msn being the default search on most new computers, these 3 factors will put google out of business.

Lets also not forget that since googles IPO, results IMHO have been less relevant than ever. Google is not in the search business for the consumer like it use to be when they first launched. Now their SE is their main income producer for their company. Google has no choice but to try and drive as many people to adwords as possible.

In order to do this they must drive site owners in whatever way they can to their adwords. Whether this means adding more filters to knock off more websites out of their index or using time delayed filters to drive X percentage of websites to adwords for 6 to 12 month periods to increase income.

I have been polling my customers about which search engines they are using and why. The responses I have been getting are telling me that consumers are heading away from google for lack of relevant results.

I have been told that sites they visit that run adsense, most dont care for it. Consumers have stated they are looking for information , not advertisements. Others have said that in relation to google and yahoo and MSN that msn and yahoo are supplying them with more specific content than google.

This is not to say that all fields related to a google search is less relevant. My poll only relates to the real estate industry and the clients who have contacted us through our websites. Also as I have stated before, the conversion rates from yahoo and msn have been greater than google.

It almost seems to me that people coming to us from google are just surfing or fantasy shopping. I can also report that 60% of the consumers coming from the east coast are using yahoo or msn, a little over 75 percent from the west coast are using google or msn.

To close this book out lol...Once MSN launches the marketing giant for the new Search engine and release all their other goodies that will point consumers to their SE, googles days become numbered. Most consumers want to be lead when looking to aquire a product or find information, there is noone better then that than MSN.

Google has forgot this in relation to consumers and instead of targeting consumers, they are going after the website owners and webmasters to try and drive them to adwords or adsense in hopes of this leaking down to the consumer. IMHO MSN is targeting the average consumer not the website owners or webmasters.

MSN does not have to rely on income from their search engine, where google has to in order to keep their investors happy. Hence MSN will target the average internet user, where google has to target the website owner or webmaster.

[anthonycea]

One thing you are forgetting is that the Microsoft OS/IE is a great security risk for the internet itself.

Mobile wireless computing and data centers will become the CPU down the road and Google is light years ahead in this race.

IBM is the leader in on demand computing and data center operations, thus Google and IBM are going down the same road (web services are the CPU) on network or grid computing.

It is the OS that will determine the winner in the search engine wars and Microsoft OS is going to lose great market share in the next few years.

Firefox is leading folks to open source and Google services also, Microsoft knows this and is now marketing the "media center OS" in the hope that when convergence of television and the internet come together with cable top boxes that they will still be at the top of the heap.

I have been telling folks that the combination of Google and IBM is THE KILLER APP, that could kill Microsoft Windows desktop. Google and IBM could be one company sooner than you think.

You will just have to keep watching the OS/Search engine wars because it is much more than a search engine war that your witnessing here.

[kc3]

kc3, your CSS is wrong, you use: background-color=#000000, it should be, background-color: #000000.

<STYLE>
A:link {background=#FFFFFF;color:#0084A5;text-decoration:none}
A:visited {background=#FFFFFF;color:#0084A5;text-decoration:none}
A:hover {background=#000000;color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:none}
A:active {background=#FFFFFF;color:#000000;text-decoration:none}</STYLE>

This is my code, can you explain a little more? I thought I knew what you meant, but when I tried it it messed up.

[Refrozen]

Just my 2 cents. Consumers dont have 1/100 of the knowledge that most here on this forum have about search engines. Consumers will use what the marketing giants point them to. With MSN releasing the search function in MSN messenger and also msn being the default search on most new computers, these 3 factors will put google out of business.
You can have my two cents with that thought as well, that is exactly what I was/am thinking.


I have been telling folks that the combination of Google and IBM is THE KILLER APP, that could kill Microsoft Windows desktop. Google and IBM could be one company sooner than you think.
While it is quite possible, I don't see it happening anytime soon, right now, if Microsoft thinks that they won't be able to kill Google, they have the money to buy them out a few times over... Currently, Google + Firefox + Everything is hurting Microsoft big time...

I'll express more of my opinion when I have some spare time later, now to go give most of the people in this thread reputation++ :-)

[Refrozen]

<STYLE>
A:link {background=#FFFFFF;color:#0084A5;text-decoration:none}
A:visited {background=#FFFFFF;color:#0084A5;text-decoration:none}
A:hover {background=#000000;color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:none}
A:active {background=#FFFFFF;color:#000000;text-decoration:none}</STYLE>

This is my code, can you explain a little more? I thought I knew what you meant, but when I tried it it messed up.

A:link {background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#0084A5;text-decoration:none}
A:visited {background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#0084A5;text-decoration:none}
A:hover {background-color:#000000;color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:none}
A:active {background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;text-decoration:none}

There you go.

[Las Vegas Homes]

I dont see firefox as being effective, at least in the real estate industry.There are no mls systems that support firefox, only IE and I am sure this is the case within other industries.

As for IBM and google, well I dont believe that google will be able to weather the storm of the financial power that MSN has. Mr Bill didnt get to where he is at by letting smaller companies run over him. You mention there is security risk with MS OS sys. This is true, I am not expert but the only reason I see these security risk is because those that are taking advantage of these risk, know that there are more users using this OS system than any other. So they target MS users instead of mozilla users. Anything can be hacked whether it is MS OS or Mozilla OS. It just so happens that more people use MS OS than any other and those that are causing these security risk want to cause havic with the masses and not the few.

Even in googles system, someone has found a security risk. It doesnt matter what system or whos. Those that want to cause havic will target the system that the masses use.

Over the next year I predict that we will see the google stock drop like a rock. Investors will cash out leaving google holding the bag with all the new spending they are doing. Google has tried to grow to fast and spent to much money since their IPO and the only thing generating real income for google is adwords. Once their stock drops, google will be a prime target for a hostile takeover.

Then you will see someone like IBM or MSN come in and take over this company. Googles little 3 billion dollar company is nothing compared to the 300 billion dollar giant called Microsoft.

Lets also not forget about the law suits google has against them presently. One judgement against google and investors head for the hills. Google does not have the financial power MS does and one judgement could sink google, whereas MS has already weathered that storm.

I understand that with the traffic that google has generated some of you and the income it has produced for those running adsense, you dont want google to fall, but it is not up to us or google or even msn as to who is number 1, it is up to the consumer and consumers from my own polls are getting fed up with googles lack of relevant results and the difficulty in finding informative sites within google.

Google IMHO has forgot about the average consumer and MSN has seen this and is taking advantage of this. The average internet consumer barely knows how to send email and needs things that make their search simple.

We as website owners and webmasters in a sense have caused this. We try to manipulate results and google has had to answer this with changes in its system to combat our efforts. Google has forgot about the consumer and made this an us against them type search engine. IMHO

[Refrozen]

About the security risks, when you have a system as big as Google or Windows of course there will be security holes -- probably some almost unfixable as well, granted, a 4 line hello world program can be bugless, but a 40 million line operating system cannot.

[anthonycea]

When you are talking company values you must look at total market capitalization versus total market capitalization.

Not sales versus market capitalization.

OK here are the financial facts of life for IBM, Google and Microsoft.

Google has 1.5 Billion in sales, a current market capitalization of 51.4 Billion and a PE ratio that is not available at this time from NYtimes.com, all these figures were pulled from NYtimes.com business section.

Microsoft has sales of 36.8 Billion, a market capitalization of 293 Billion and a PE ratio of 36.8

IBM has sales of 89 Billion, a market capitalization of 162 Billion and a PE ratio of 20, which is more in line with reality versus Microsoft which is still overvalued.

Most shareholders are hanging on to M$ because of a 75 Billion dollar special dividend to be paid out to shareholders over the next 3-5 years, of which Bill Gates will receive more than 3 Billion dollars from this cash dividend payout because M$ is sitting on too much cash according to analysts.

Microsoft may well be able to buy both IBM or Google but the anti-trust laws of the nation would never allow an illegal monopoly to acquire either company.

You all seen what the EU just ruled against M$ did you not?

Thursday, December 23, 2004

[HHI Golf Guy]

When MSN is ready to make its move, they will take a big chunk of Google's market share within 2 years. MSN might not take the lead in overall share, but they will make it close.

MSN will hire an ad agency to develop a slick TV commercial with with a catchy jingle (think HP's new "Picture Book" commercial) and the average web surfer will start using MSN without really thinking about it.

I agree with Las Vegas Homes that Google employs the use of filter algorithms to keep some sites from ranking well, especially in real estate. I believe that their business model is to drive more AdWords revenue. But here's the ironic part: I notice that for most real estate PPC ads that the CPC for Yahoo/Overture is 2-3 times the cost of the PPC for the same keywords on Google!

What will MSN do with PPC? It's inevitable that they will eventually break away from Overture with their own PPC system. Will their SERP algo's then follow the business model of Google or Yahoo?

[anthonycea]

Well the SERP's past the first page were subject to a lot of things that many think have been fuzzy or are fuzzy and a lot of webmasters are pissed off because of inconsistency in Google SERP's.

Do they drive webmasters to buy ADWORDS with inconsistent results or have they done this in the past or are they secretly doing this now?

That is a great question and I think that most folks have seen some light on this.

But with Google sending over 95% of referrals to some (most) sites from search engines how can any of us bitch without being crushed?

How Yahoo and MSN take share from Google is a mystery because I see very little coming from either of them in my server logs.

There are hundreds of search engines out there, but if we are honest with each other I would bet that most of the referrals to most sites from search engines are coming from Google.

It is their game to lose, I have been pissed off at them more than any of you ever will be in the past, but if they are the only game in town we have to realize that we play with them or go out of business.

I see few referrals from MSN or Yahoo so what does that tell you?

Friday, December 24, 2004

[HHI Golf Guy]

But with Google sending over 95% of referrals to some (most) sites from search engines how can any of us bitch without being crushed?

The problem with a statement like this is that search engine traffic to a web site is based on two key factors, not one. Most people tend to think that SE traffic is based only on SE market share. But the component that they forget is relative SERP's for the same key phrases.

If I rank #5 for kw1 on Google and #88 for kw1 on Yahoo, of course Google will send me a lot more referals. But if I'm #5 for kw2 on both SE's the breakdown is more like 55%-45% in favor of G.

But that is probably too broad a generalization. Different demographic types (income, education, etc.) are probably using different SE's. I would love to see some data on this.

Yes, Google does get the larger share of SE traffic now. But a few years back the Bee Gees and Michael Jackson sold the most albums. Humans are fickle, and quickly flock to the latest fad or trends. MSN has the money and the marketing experience to start stealing market share from G, Y, and everyone else.

[anthonycea]

What do your logs tell you right now?

[HHI Golf Guy]

The answer varies with each of my sites. Some have G referals as high as 64%, some are split between G-Y-MSN at 30ish/20ish/10ish, and some are at about 30% share each.

One more thing - I think that SE traffic also depends highly on what people are searching for (products, types of products, information, resource materials, etc). I don't have nearly enough data of my own to form any solid conclusions on this, but I strongly believe it to be true (especially in conjunction with web surfer age and income demographics).

[Refrozen]

What do your logs tell you right now?
My logs say that MSN, and Yahoo both send me more traffic then Google -- and for WEIRD keywords.

However, I find I get WAAAAAAAAAAY more inbounds from various forums and direct (or no referer) links.

[Kia81]

Advertisers and Publishers generally like Google, but at the same time they would all like to see some changes. MSN has the opportunity to capitalize on the flaws of Google. There have been complaints about bad customer service, lack of real-time stats, and strange Adsense terms of service policies (among other issues I can't think of right now). I don't think google is going to self destruct, but I do think they will be smaller than they are now. And for some reason I just want to use a smiley face because I never used one in a forum before :)

[Refrozen]

Yeah, by "Die" I meant more like what happened to Yahoo, hitting a deep slum for a whiel...

[Las Vegas Homes]

One important factor that I dont believe has been looked at is conversion. For real estate this is a very very important factor. For our websites the conversion of leads has been greater from MSN and Yahoo than google.

The leads that are converting from google are really not coming from google at all but coming from AOL. I personally find when looking at logs, it is mostly webmasters and our competitors viewing the websites from google.

I usually see bigger chunks of BW being taken from visitors from google than MSN or Yahoo. This leads me to believe that it is a competitor or webmaster breaking down the sites. I have some proof of this because of other sites we have found that have taken content or reversed engineered one of the sites and placed it on the web..lol.

When I compare stats from the SEs for kw1. MSN Vs Google it is a 45% msn to 55% google ratio. When I throw yahoo into the mix, we have almost a 2 to 1 ratio of traffic over google. Those figures will now change with 2 more sites in yahoo's top 10 and 1 other added in top 10 to MSN.

These figures may not be the case for a top 3 website for kw1 in google, but for just a top 10 site in google for kw1 these are the figures I have.

I predict within 7 to 12 months assuming MSN launches the marketing for the new SE in Jan. We will see MSN equal googles market share in 2005 and maybe pass them depending on how aggressive they get in the last quarter of 2005 or sooner if google has some negitive press between now and then from either a law suit on file or some other bit of information that may come to light.

[DarrenC]

It would be nice to see a higher % of visitors coming from MSN and Yahoo, but personally I cannot see either of these corporations coming close to Google within the next year simply because people, i.e users do not see them as a being search engine specific - I think you could say that they have "too many fingers in the pie" in that they offer too many services and people don't identify them as being a search engine.

I'd like to think that I would start to receive more referrals from MSN and Yahoo, but unless they spend millions on marketing MSN and Yahoo has being search engines I don't think that will happen.

[ephricon]

I agree with WWHHomes - Yahoo and MSN's brands are both too diluted. The average user tends to go for simplicity and clearness of purpose. Google has both of these - Yahoo and MSN are very far from it. IMO MSN would be MUCH better off promoting their www.msnsearch.com URL than advertising the www.msn.com URL when plugging their search engine. People like Google b/c they know what to expect - and what they expect is a clean, clear, quick and easy search - without tons of not-always-relevant sponsored results, without all kinds of news articles and games and entertainment crowding the page, etc.

Users are happy with Google. IMO it would one of two things to swing the tide. 1) People become dissatisfied in general with Google's search interface or results or 2) MSN/Yahoo create a stronger search-focused brand. I don't see either of those happening at present, so while a new search technology is great for MSN, and it will hopefully improve their results, I dont see it making a large impact on their market share.

[Refrozen]

I disagree, Microsoft has the money (and the reasoning) to promote MSN in any way possible right now, they want to kill Google. The way I see it, Google is a threat to Microsoft in general, although, Google is not as rich as some people think, Google has the power to influence the web. Microsoft wants a monopoly over that power (again, IMO).

I have to agree with you on point number two (2. MSN/Yahoo create a stronger search-focused brand.) that really does need to happen. But, if MSN and Yahoo can each get over 25% of the search results (meaning the two of them together could cause a 'minority government' (canadians :D)) that would be good enough for me. I just don't like seeing Google as being the ONLY search engine targetted.

Another advantage to having each SE around 33%, would be that each uses a different algorithm, thus, SEO wouldn't be as possible (IMO, SEO is a bad thing for the end user -- de-relavanting search results) as it currently is. You'd basically have to target one SE, and SEO for only it, or don't do any SEO at all.

[minstrel]

The answer varies with each of my sites. Some have G referals as high as 64%, some are split between G-Y-MSN at 30ish/20ish/10ish, and some are at about 30% share each.

One more thing - I think that SE traffic also depends highly on what people are searching for (products, types of products, information, resource materials, etc). I don't have nearly enough data of my own to form any solid conclusions on this, but I strongly believe it to be true (especially in conjunction with web surfer age and income demographics).
I agree. My sites are primarily information oriented and 70-75% of my traffic comes from Google (that used to be 80-85% though so it's declining somewhat). On the other hand, sites selling certain retail products or services seem to report more traffic from Yahoo which for me is less than 10%.

I don't think it's entirely demographic, though. I think it's because Google does a better job of returning relevant results for academic/medical information, as an example, and perhaps doesn't do as well for products and services. My guess it's an interaction between search engine "specialization' and demographics and the type of site.

[Las Vegas Homes]

Looking at my logs for the last week, these are the break downs of traffic.

Google: 32.47%
MSN: 31.17%
Yahoo: 27.27%

This site is on the first page of all SEs for KW1 and KW2. Since G IPO I have seen this become more the norm for our websites. These figures however do not calculate the addition of MSN beta. You can see that MSN isn't buying into the link manipulation that G is. Unless google changes at least in my industry for real estate and stops producing IMHO very bad results MSN will take a hugh share of market from Google.

[DarrenC]

Interesting stats.

Here is mine for the month of December (so far!)

1. Yahoo 42.86%
2. Google 24.29%
3. MSN Search UK 18.57%
4. MSN Search 14.29%

Google down to 2nd - compared to November where Google had over 89% referrals. Yahoo's recent changes (algo?) have seen a big increase in serps, compared to Google who since the first week in December have dropped serps that have sat on the first page for over 2years.

All I need now is for my serps to return on Google and I'm laughin!

[daamsie]

Wow, some people really get a lot of visits from Yahoo! Is this because of Yahoo's popularity or worse rankings in Google though?

For our site, we undoubtedly rank better in Google and as a result, we have FAR better referrals from them.

Referrals for December so far:

no.1 referrer Google.com - 52,742
no.2 our own site.
no.3-10 - google.es, google.fr, etc..
no.11 referrer Yahoo.com - 4,318
no.12-19 - more googles
no.20 msn.com - 1,402

I think Google is by far better at handling large dynamic sites though.

Comparing a keyphrase that we have evenly listed on no.2 across Google, Yahoo and MSN we have had 201 referrals from Google, 68 from Yahoo and 29 from MSN. And I think it was on no.3 for the first week of the month on Google.

All in all though, I think Google have established themselves very well as THE search engine and even with MSN marketing their search like crazy, I think they will have a hard time beating that image. I don't expect Google to go anywhere and nor do I want them to go anywhere. I can't think of anything worse than resorting to Microsoft for my searches.

[DarrenC]

daamsie, hows Sam? Tell him I said Hi!

I agree with you regarding Google, but I do hope that MSN and Yahoo get a higher marketshare, you simply cannot rely on Google, or one search engine to refer traffic to your website.

Darren

[daamsie]

hehe, will pass it on - do you know him from the aardvark forums ;-) ?

I see your point about not relying on Google for traffic and of course, this is not a great thing at all. BUT, I don't want them to lose their market share, because we're doing just fine off of that marketshare!! Maybe one day, when it's possible to get the same rankings from Yahoo and MSN it would be ok, but for now, it doesn't even seem a possibility with them, due to their painfully slow processes.

Wishing Google would lose their market share, so that we won't rely on them as much, is kind of like wishing your largest customer would drop dead, so you can learn how to make money off of all the little guys! So, I'm hoping they keep their market share for now :-)

[debunked]

are the serps on MSN reflecting Yahoo for anyone else?

[DarrenC]

Is this because of Yahoo's popularity or worse rankings in Google though?

Worse rankings in Google at the moment. November, I was receiving poor traffic from Yahoo and MSN, and 89% referrals were coming from Google SE. Still trying to make my mind up if this influx period is completed, and I need to change my tactics, or if to sit tight and see what happens on the next BL update.

daamsie, yeh I know Sam from the Aardvark travel forum - you guys have done a great job on travellerspoint - all the best for 2005!

Debunked, do you mean same positions in the results? If so, I'd say no, I have KW's that are '3 in Yahoo and '8 in MSN.

[eduardomaio]

My rankings in Google have never been better, thanks to the Coop...

Google - 3762
Yahoo - 722
AltaVista - 142
MSN - 85
Lycos - 20

Of course, most of my traffic comes from Google's .pt, .com.br and .ch websites.

But i've seen a lot of traffic start comming from Yahoo, much more then the usual for the last week or so...

[daamsie]

Worse rankings in Google at the moment. November, I was receiving poor traffic from Yahoo and MSN, and 89% referrals were coming from Google SE. Still trying to make my mind up if this influx period is completed, and I need to change my tactics, or if to sit tight and see what happens on the next BL update.

daamsie, yeh I know Sam from the Aardvark travel forum - you guys have done a great job on travellerspoint - all the best for 2005!

Debunked, do you mean same positions in the results? If so, I'd say no, I have KW's that are '3 in Yahoo and '8 in MSN.

Thanks m8, all the best to you as well for the year ahead! :)

re: the influx - I'm not sure that the fluxing ever ends.. I usually like to wait a few months though to at least have a good idea of how things might pan out. Unless of course, there is some obvious problem that needs fixing.

[DarrenC]

I usually like to wait a few months though to at least have a good idea of how things might pan out. Unless of course, there is some obvious problem that needs fixing.

daamsie, yeh thats what I intend to do. Traffic is slightly affected, but luckily Yahoo and MSN have got their act together, plus after Florida I made sure that I was advertising on websites / offline marketing, to bring in traffic during periods like this.

[Help Desk]

It is much easier to get into Yahoo's and MSN's search rankings. Does that mean these are the better search engines? One would think not. This is merely a sign that these search engines are fledglings.

btw With a title like this thread's title, I thought for sure this was going to be an Anthonycea thread.

[Las Vegas Homes]

I can only personally state to the real estate industry for MSN and Yahoo, but as I have in google I have not seen any manipulation of MSN and Yahoo with websites related to the sale of drugs being listed in the top 20 for MSN and Yahoo as some are in Google. What does an online drug order company have to do with real estate????

Also some sites that are listed top 10 in Google for my areas kw1 and kw2 are not listed in Yahoo or MSN, Does this make Google better? I think not.

From what I have seen of Google only 65 percent of the listings in the top 20 are relevant compared to yahoo and msn for kw1 and kw2. Google has to drive more sites to adwords and this is one way to do it. Produce less relevant results. Real estate is a big income producer for google and their adwords.

[tom22]

From what I have seen of Google only 65 percent of the listings in the top 20 are relevant compared to yahoo and msn for kw1 and kw2. Google has to drive more sites to adwords and this is one way to do it. Produce less relevant results. Real estate is a big income producer for google and their adwords.

I disagree. Google wants to provide the most relevant results, and that means making sure that just because someone wants their page to be on top, it doesn't necessarily mean that it does. Google is always changing their algo to make sure that people don't know what to do to get the high ranking. This may result in some few less relevant results, but ultimately will provide more relevant results as there is no "silver bullet" to getting a high ranking, so people can't just do x, y, and z and get the #1 spot.

It can be very frustrating for us, but I find it hard to believe it is just to get more people on AdWords.

[minstrel]

I think you'll find that industries that have been hardest hit since the Google "Florida update" are also those that tend to be the worst offenders in search engine spamming and other "black hat" SEO techniques. The fact that legitmate site owners suffer along with the spammers is unfortunate but something needs to be done to clean out the crap.

As for it being easier to rank in Yahoo and MSN, that may be in part because they are less successful at filtering the spam and other garbage... that's certainly been my impression in the areas I search routinely.

[Las Vegas Homes]

Thats my point, I have not seen the spam or junk websites listed in MSN beta that I have in Google. Google for the real estate industry and I can not speak to any other is not very relevant.

Any website that is considered an authority site can rank in the top 30 easy for real estate terms. Check the results for Las Vegas real estate and look at the top 20 results, you will even see a online drug order company listed in the top 20..lol.

I have seen MSN beta use what I believe to be a nice little filter weeding out a few sites that are listed in google that claok and use doorway pages, they dont show up in MSN beta for what it is worth but yet place very high in google.

[CanadianEh]

I believe that Microsoft will get a greater market share even if they have to buy it.

I think the new millionaires and billionaires at Google will have an effect. I never hear of any sensitive info being leaked by ex-employees. That will probably change as the people with the vested interest retire and regular joes replace them. I think more secrets will escape from Google in the future.

[Refrozen]

Thats my point, I have not seen the spam or junk websites listed in MSN beta that I have in Google. Google for the real estate industry and I can not speak to any other is not very relevant.

I've gotta agree there, however, I also find MSN Beta's index to be VERY small and only containing the MOST up to date websites... Granted, this isn't a bad thing, however many keyword find dramatically less results, some people base a search engines greatness on the # of results (not me, obviously)

[DarrenC]

You've made a very good point about MSN and Google being more specific. You do not see the spam on MSN and Yahoo that you see on Google. Google will know this and like Minstrel said, will work on the most affected areas - I'm sure one of them areas will be travel, simply because of the amount of sites that have participated in spammy, black hat seo.

[Las Vegas Homes]

For over a year now though I have seen this kind of listing in google. IMO I think that google doesnt want to fix some areas of their index, because it drives more income to adwords. I have a site in the top 10 of google for kw 1 and kw 2 and if I am reading the index right I should have a second site in the top 10 on the next major update.

I do know though that MSN and Yahoo are gaining ground at least in our real estate industry. Looking at the logs for most of our website traffic from MSN and Yahoo combine now have almost a 3 to 1 ratio. This has only been occuring for the last 20 or so days, but prior to that, MSN and Yahoo combine had a 2 to 1 ratio over google.

This last week however MSN traffic has out performed google. With Google we flux between 9 and 7 where MSN and Yahoo we are top 5 for kw 1 and kw 2.

[daamsie]

Thats my point, I have not seen the spam or junk websites listed in MSN beta that I have in Google. Google for the real estate industry and I can not speak to any other is not very relevant.

Yeah, I think if you only look at a few keywords, it is very hard to claim that one search engine is better than another. If you want to see some spammy results in MSN, do a search for 'hostales londres' - Google isn't much better mind you, but at least they put us in front of all the spam :) !! I haven't tried many search terms on MSN at all - it didn't take long to find this spam.

And I am of the sort that thinks that more results = better results. I mean, how is it possible to decide the best result, when you don't even have all possibilities indexed?? Sure, if the page is total crap / spam, it serves no purpose, but a lot of the pages that MSN/Yahoo haven't managed to index are totally legit and very useful. Their indexes aren't smaller because they've weeded the spam - they're smaller simply because they haven't managed to index enough of the good stuff.

[HHI Golf Guy]

Thats my point, I have not seen the spam or junk websites listed in MSN beta that I have in Google. Google for the real estate industry and I can not speak to any other is not very relevant.

If you're a consumer looking for real estate, then Google is a horrible place to search. That said, I have noticed a few things about how Google handles real estate web sites. G appears to apply a content filter regarding real estate. If your site is a regional site that actually sells real estate the filter is applied. If your site is real estate directory or discusses area real estate (market conditions, etc.), the filter is not applied.

This makes sense for G - it drives more realtors to participate in the AdWords program.

Obviously, the filter can be beat. But it takes alot of time and effort.

[minstrel]

This makes sense for G - it drives more realtors to participate in the AdWords program.
I keep seeing this argument in various contexts and it is totally bogus.

The Google guys are not idiots. Their ability to sell ad space depends on the number of regular search users. Their first priority is to DELIVER RELEVANT RESULTS FOR REGULAR SEARCHES. I don't claim they are perfect at doing this but this is and always has been their number one priority. If they start to slip on that one, regular searchers will decline and in turn their advertisers will start to go elsewhere.

Let me say it one more time: Google is NOT trying to make their searches less relevant or helpful in order to drive people to their paid ads. The only way this would make any sense whatsoever would be if you could demonstrate that the people running Google are either stupid or insane, and I think their record shows very clearly that they arfe neither.

[anthonycea]

It is not all that far fetched Minstrel, Google can and will do whatever they have to do to benefit the bottom line.

They have mixed the algos up above the tree lines before and they can do it anytime they will. Who is going to stop them?

[minstrel]

It's not that anyone is going to stop them. It's that it would be a dumb business move. And Google didn't get to number one by making dumb business moves.

[anthonycea]

I have traveled this road before Minstrel and so have you, it is time to let others fight it out :)

[Refrozen]

It's not that anyone is going to stop them. It's that it would be a dumb business move. And Google didn't get to number one by making dumb business moves.
Yeah, but, we all thought that of Yahoo until Google came along... (not that Yahoo is dead -- faaaaaaaar from that, but as a search engine, it might as well be)

[minstrel]

Who thought that of Yahoo? I never liked Yahoo and they made a LOT of dumb business decisions. They're still doing that -- the one really good decision they've made recently was to add customizable RSS feeds to their MyYahoo portal.

[sarathy]

My opinion twards Google is based entirely on my rankings.

If my site is ranking highly, they are obviously returning relvevent results and I wish them the best of luck.

If my site is no where to be found in G, obviously they aren't doing a very good job and I want users to go elsewhere.

That is the opinion of every SEO here, some will however sugarcoat it more. :cool:

ha ha ha, Thatz cool and everyone thinks like that :)

[Refrozen]

Who thought that of Yahoo? I never liked Yahoo and they made a LOT of dumb business decisions. They're still doing that -- the one really good decision they've made recently was to add customizable RSS feeds to their MyYahoo portal.
I did...:-D

No, seriously. I thought Yahoo would be around forever, (i especially liked their commericals: Do you YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?) granted, they made some business -- errors, but, all major companies do, think about Microsoft, every third move they make is probably an error, but they still WORK.

That's all I have to say for now, because I can see where this is going and I don't want for it to go the way it's going :P

[reppy]

Thread title is very misleading. And no, I don't think Google is going to die.

[anthonycea]

I have news for you all, don't count Yahoo out of the search game.

Google is the company with a lot to lose, Yahoo has no where to go but up and is still in the game contrary to popular belief.

I have seen more referrals from Yahoo recently, not less, Google still provides the lions share, but little by little, Yahoo is providing more.

That means more folks are using Yahoo again.

[ManageMyServices]

What business errors did yahoo make?

I think yahoo's search pages can be slighly easier to understand when browsing a specific topic... but google wins it over msn anyday...Microsoft have enough money as it is, i'd rather put it in googles pocket.

[Design Agent]

Personally, I have never noticed Google surpressing any results.. Most of my referrals are from Google, although I tend to rank better in Yahoo and MSN...but I'm talking Niches here.

Who will win the search wars ? I would guess MSN eventually...

I figure the winner will be the engine ingrained the deepest into the operating sytem (it has to provide good enough results too).
With dashboards, widgets, desktop search and the rest, the idea of going to a web page to find something will just seem alien. I don't really see how Google can challenge this in the long term...other than to turn into some kind of operating system itself. Also, Microsoft is spending alot on Mobile OS I think they will build their search straight in to Pdas etc.. as well.

I think the holy grail is local search, The amount of ad revenue generated when millions of local businesses competing locally. We are talking money that even Bill can't imagine. So this is why MSN will have to win.

The majority of people I know are barely internet literate, They use hotmail + might have bought something from ebay, I am guessing they will just follow whatever is put infront of them.

Still, I think Anthony could well be right, IBM + Google would do well and if they could perfect voice search they may stand a good chance..

Then again, maybe another couple of Stanford students turn up and everything changes again...

[Mia]

What business errors did yahoo make?

I think yahoo's search pages can be slighly easier to understand when browsing a specific topic... but google wins it over msn anyday...Microsoft have enough money as it is, i'd rather put it in googles pocket.

I think one non business error was the heavy investment in Google :)

[minstrel]

Or how about believing cluttered portals were more important to surfers than an efficient relevant search engine service?

[Mia]

I could not agree more.. I still wonder into Yahoo whenever I need to map something, or check a stock, etc.. Call me lazy.. I suppose I could just type mapquest.com, but yahoo just seems so much easier :)

[Refrozen]

What business errors did yahoo make?

I think yahoo's search pages can be slighly easier to understand when browsing a specific topic... but google wins it over msn anyday...Microsoft have enough money as it is, i'd rather put it in googles pocket.
They sold listings, and they went overboard on the advertising, "underboard" on the actual quality of results.

[Refrozen]

Then again, maybe another couple of Stanford students turn up and everything changes again...

It'll quite likely happen a few times from now 'til the Death of The Internet 1.0 (tm, www.Refrozen.com :p)

Of course... maybe not. Maybe TDoTI1.0 will happen sooner than I expect?

[selfstyledexpert]

I just don't think there's going to be a clear winner for a long time. Google's going to give the web API after API, and they've almost moved search technology into every corner of it already. It seems obvious to everyone that Microsoft is going to use their software: Windows, IE, WMP, Office to drive users to their search. A few years ago it seemed unthinkable that anybody could put up a decent fight against Microsoft. But now, the Web is a better platform than Windows. Just because somebody uses Excel, it doesn't mean that they're going to be satisfied with Microsoft's version of the Web. Of course, if you could right click on your spreadsheet column and the popup menu offers you a chance to 'Compare conversion rate vs. publicly available conversion rate statistics' for your category and keywords, that might change things up a little. But, who do you think is going to do a better job with that depth and level of indexing, Microsoft or Google?

[ResaleBroker]

With the new and upcoming MSN beta looking so successful, and Microsoft's drive to kill Google before it gets to the Epic 2014 state (:P) do you think Yahoo/MSN will kill Google?I'd put my money on Bill.;)

[Refrozen]

Google won't last if MSN decides to take over. All they have to do is integrate more tightly in to the OS, and Google loses.

[minstrel]

I know everyone assumes this and I don't doubt that MSN could give Google their first real competition (certainly there's no way Yahoo's gonna do that!) but I wouldn't count Google out. They have an awfully large lead on anyone and they are still THE search engine, regardless of what certain webmasters may think or say about it being "broken".

Can Google be knocked out of the pole position? Of course. But it's far from inevitable. Microsoft bundled Money with everything under the sun, as well as offering it as free OEM software on new systems. They still haven't knocked Quicken out of the water and I don't think they will.

I don't believe the claim that Netscape was beaten because IE was integrated with the operating system. IE beat Netscape because at the time it was a better browser and continuing to get better and Netscape was falling further behind as time passed.

[chachi]

Well, I am not going to say that Google is going to die, but Yahoo! has been sending us a boatload more traffic over the past 2-3 weeks. I poked around Yahoo! search today and it is pretty funny...their search pages look nearly identical to Google's now....down to the search options (web, images, etc).

With the increased throttle on MSN beta, we are receiving a bunch more traffic from them as well. All the while, Google is doing crazy stuff. It is going to be interesting to see what happens over the next few months.

[inthedark]

google the next netscape? i dunno, maybe

[sue]

I was just saying the other day google isnt as reliable as it use to be, and if i am searching the net for myself I am starting to check yahoos results more and more, especially if im searching for something really specific.

[leeds1]

I was just saying the other day google isnt as reliable as it use to be, and if i am searching the net for myself I am starting to check yahoos results more and more, especially if im searching for something really specific.

I agree with this statement

Y! results are much more relevant

I really can't find anything on google these days

[anthonycea]

Minstrel, Microsoft did not even create the flawed IE browser, they acquired it from Spyglass to run Netscape out of business.

It is flawed technology and is one in the same with the flawed Windows OS, Firefox is a better browser and anyone using IE is subject to attacks by hackers daily unless they have the best AV and spyware protection enabled.

[minstrel]

Firefox has its own problems but I wasn't trying to claim that IE doesn't need upgrading by now -- what I said was that Netscape was displaced because it had become a clunky buggy dinosaur and by the time IE was integrated with the OS it was in contrast fast and sleek.

And I do have "the best AV and spyware protection enabled". So should everyone else. There are excellent freeware versions of both available so the only excuse now is obstinacy or ignorance.

[Refrozen]

I agree with this statement

Y! results are much more relevant

I really can't find anything on google these days
I agree, Google is losing relevancy, however, I disagree, Yahoo is even less relevant.

[my3cents]

I say we welcome the newcomer (MSN) and others. Diversification means more stability for all of us. Like mentioned early in this thread, if Google drops one of us in their rankings, it could really hurt you if your traffic is 60% Google referred. But if you got 3-4 main search players, your traffic will most likely be more evenly divided. Each engine would have less power to hurt our bottom line.

[Refrozen]

I say we welcome the newcomer (MSN) and others. Diversification means more stability for all of us. Like mentioned early in this thread, if Google drops one of us in their rankings, it could really hurt you if your traffic is 60% Google referred. But if you got 3-4 main search players, your traffic will most likely be more evenly divided. Each engine would have less power to hurt our bottom line.
Agreed, more good search enginesm where they have even amounts of traffic, or near even, or at least no one has over 50%, is a good thing for us.

[crear21]

True, but only if their algos are different enough.