Will Google maintain its search engine power?
-
Reading through the SEOmoz threads, and also other forums, I can't help but notice that the majority of material covered is about SEO & SERP, white hat & black hat linking, social media blogs and articles, etc, etc.
Everyone trying to scramble to the top of their market via Google. If Google brought out a release saying that hopping down the street naked & having a neighbour googling that you had, for improved SERP ratings, would produce a weird downtown scenario.
What I am asking, is this: Does Google have too much power in determining to the world what is correct and what is not as a corporation. And are they and what they have a passing phase, or will they lose their dominance like Microsoft etc through technical change?
-
Morgan,
A phase in this case is a development stage. previous phases were newspapers, radio, television, Netscape. A future phase for all I know might be 3D imaging, which if another provider is quick on the uptake, could make Google's search engine obsolete over time.
-
So long as Google continues to serve the end user better than their competitors in web search they will likely stay on top. The mechanisms for search may change but there are some core concepts that will remain the same.
Does Google have too much power? The end user decides if Google is right or wrong, so there's a bit of check and balance. To say what they have is a passing phase would be inaccurate unless you consider phases to last more than a decade.
-
I think it's a safe bet that the way we find information and making purchase decisions will undergo another dramatic change in the next few decades. I mean, thirty years ago, a bunch of ad copywriters were probably sitting around and wondering if the Yellow Pages' phone book market dominance would ever be challenged. They couldn't imagine web search, and we can't imagine what will replace web search.
In the meantime, Bing seems to be growing slowly but steadily. I wouldn't bet on them overtaking Google at any point, but it's conceivable that they could approach them in volume.
As for whether they have "too much power," obviously competition is good for consumers ... but we're not consumers, are we? I'm wondering, would we really prefer that search volume was equally distributed among, say, five or six different search engines? Meaning you now have to optimize for a half-dozen different algorithms in order to get lots of visitors from organic search? Oy.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Brand Page Verification
I have a website, for that i have created a Brand page on Google plus. So please tell me that: Is brand page need any verification like Google my business page or not..?? And if Yes then what will be steps to get verified..?
Social Media | | 1akal0 -
Google+ comment is not appear what should I do?
Hello My customer trying to leave recommendation on Google+ but it doesn't appear? I tried also to test it I can see on my account under my recommendation part but I can't see on google + under company page? Thanks
Social Media | | FRUTIKO0 -
Should I use a Google Plus page or Google Plus for my business?
I am looking to write regular good quality blog posts about the niche subject my business is in. Should these blog posts come from a Google Plus page or my personal Google Plus profile? These blog posts will feature on our company website. How does that effect Google Authorship etc... Thanks
Social Media | | roberthseo1 -
Moving from Google place to Google+ - problems, problems
Hi, I'm just moving a business listing from Google Places to Google+ I have a couple of problems. (1) The verification postcard has turned up with the wrong address on it (different to the address on Google Places!) - can I alter this once I've verified Google+ page or would I need to go through postcard verification again? (2) I see the categories in Google+ are far less flexible (and appropriate) for the business I work for, so I'm thinking that may cause problems. Has anybody else experienced this same problem? Thanks in advance for your help 🙂
Social Media | | McTaggart1 -
Google Autor Profiles in Big Companies
I work for a big company and they want to use the google autor tag. The goal is to get the rich snippets and better rankings in the future from having a trusworthy autor for each topic building up followers basically. The problem is that the company does not want to pay employees to build up their own autor profiles/trust since an employee could leave the company any time and we would have to start from scratch building another autor profile. Now I know that google only wants real people in google plus bla bla ... bla bla ... How do you guys handle this problem? I thought of having our autors sharing one made up autor profile which is owned by the company.
Social Media | | Windex0 -
Personal & Business Google+ Pages - which gives SEO juice?
Hi i set up a personal Google+ page and added a business page for my website www.over50choices.co.uk. The business page is linked to my site, but my personal profile "James Price" has the authorship and my blog, youtube, twitter accounts for over50choices linked to it - do i need to link all these accounts to my Google+ business page to get maximum SEO juice or will my personal page get picked up? Do i need to transfer all the social accounts to my business profille - help!? Thanks James
Social Media | | AshShep11 -
Google+ Is this listing Claimed or Not?
I'm working on a dentist website. I logged in using their gmail account. I then searched for the practice name with the city and state then found their listing. I clicked on the link that has the Google reviews and it brought me to their Google+ page. If I click on Manage this page, it takes me to my client Google places dashboard page where I can edit some information.... even though I am having a hard time uploading images. Getting a "Cannot upload images at this time" Error The weird thing is that if I hit the browser back button and then Manage this page again, it takes me to the page where I can claim the business. I click on the blue link that says "If you own this place, claim it and edit it directly", I get a message that says "You may only access listings that you own. If you created this listing with a different Google Account, please log into that account and try again. If you've deleted this listing, you may create it again in Google Places Any clues on what is going on? Please see images attached. iyonJ.jpg Zqe7K.jpg
Social Media | | Czubmeister0 -
Google +1 and Facebook
Is it possible to add a link to Google +1 on Facebook to encourage people to click it?
Social Media | | PMC-3120870