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

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.

 

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!?"

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.)

 

Try:
http reference

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

Way off

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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).

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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

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.

 

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.

 

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.