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
-
Will the articles or blog-posts will get more visibility and do better in ranking by publishing them in different formats like videos?
Hi all, I just wonder how much the different formats of an actual content will bring more ranking improvement or visibility for an article or blog-post or landing page. If a topic has been created in video and slides, will that helps landing page at Google technically? Thanks
Social Media | | vtmoz0 -
Google Pus Places, page and youtube issues. PLEASE HELP!!!
Ok I have a youtube channel, a page connected to that and I have a business listing but I cannot get all three to work together. Any ideas? https://plus.google.com/+CentralsaddleryCoUk is the page (I want to ad the location to this one) http://www.youtube.com/user/centralsaddleryvideo our youtube The two above seem to work fine but the local listing below will not connect to the page or youtube. https://plus.google.com/b/107598085314018001171/107598085314018001171/about?hl=en-GB This has been driving me nuts for ages.
Social Media | | mark_baird0 -
Facebook Like button and Google plus
I can't believe that I still did not figure out what would be the best way to have facebook like button and google plus on the home page. I have tried several options but I was always receiving errors in W3 validator. Can somebody help please? Thank you Iris
Social Media | | Rebeca10 -
Which URL should I share with Facebook and google plus ?
Hi, My question is which URL should I use with the share plugins of Facebook and Google Plus.
Social Media | | Kadel
Should I use the URL of the website or of the facebook's page / google's + page? By the way , may I ask what's the source of the FB Shares that Moz present in the advanced keyword analysis report? and are those shares are of the website or of the facebook's page? Thanks,
Kadel.0 -
How do search engines understand what social pages are official pages of my brand? If my Facebook page name is not my brand name (even though there are links from website to page and vice-versa) will that confuse search engines?
My question is about social shares, and how search engines understand what profiles are linked to what businesses?
Social Media | | PlanetDISH0 -
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+'s +1 for business....
I'm thinking (and I could be wrong) that eventually the number of people that have +1'd a site will begin to impact search results. After all, it is Google's platform. What are your thoughts on this? And do you know if having someone +1 your site is different than having them "follow" you or add you to their circles? Should a business have more followers or +1's?
Social Media | | juliaritz0 -
Google News Application
I am wondering what I can do to get my site into Google News. I have followed their guidelines but had my site declined. I have a news sitemap, a staff page, a contact page with all info provider, etc etc. But my application was denied. One my largest competitors just got accepted so I would love to get in.
Social Media | | NoahGlaser780