Will Google still be number one in a year's time?

[londrum]

For a short time, a webmaster could almost get away with ignoring the other search engines completely and still get some decent search traffic, as long as you had a decent showing in Google. but in the last few months, as we all know, our pages have been dropping out of the google index for no apparent reason. this means that we are forced to concentrate on other engines, as google is no longer
as reliable as it once once.
after all, if we don't get any traffic, then we don't get any business, so we can't afford to wait around for google to fix itself.

From what we read in the press at the moment, it seems that MSN has got the go ahead from congress to include MSNsearch as the default search engine in its forthcoming products. and seeing as most of the web use IE, that means google is going to lose a shedload of traffic.
and a lot of people are saying that MSNsearch is BETTER than google anyway (at least at the moment). it is certainly better for us webmasters, as it seems to spider and index pages quicker than google ever did - even when it was working okay.
also... google seems to be relying more and more on human factors in ranking the pages. ie, they use data from the google toolbar and cookies to see how long people stay on the sites etc.
but when MSN becomes the default search engine on people's PCs, along with all its toolbar users etc - it may be gathering data from about 50&-80% of web users! and that is a hell of lot more than google could ever hope to get. so we can assume MSN's engine is going to improve at the expense of google's (because google won't have so many users to draw data from)
the only downside with MSN at the moment, is that it doesn't bring in anywhere near the amount of traffic that google did. but when they bring out this default search engine stuff... maybe it will.

so do you think google will be the king of search engines in a year's time?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

One year? Yes.
Two years? Probably.
Three years? Hmmmm?

[Iguana]

I really don't think that having MSN Search as the default in the browser will make any difference. It's the default in my IE 6 - but I never use that Search button - I use either the Google toolbar or Yahoo Mail search box.

One thing I can predict is that Google will be at it's biggest, in terms of worldwide usage and share price, long after it is in serious decline.

[simonmc]

Google will only have themselves to blame if they are not.

On a personal note...I am hoping for a three way tie for the number one spot. That minimises my risk as a webmaster should any of the search engines decide to play their games with the rankings. It is unlikely they will all mess up at the same time.

We should ALL hope for this.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

We should ALL hope for this.

Agreed, but a five or six way split would be even better ;)

[dangerman]

Yes, a situation where Google is no longer the far-and-away market leader has got to be the best scenario for everyone - users and webmasters.
We need to practise what we preach - start using msn and yahoo more often, change those default google search home pages, remove google toolbars.
Up yours Goliath Google! You have now become the new M**soft in the arrogance ratings. Hail the new Sampsons.

[alephh]

Well, remember what happened to Altavista which ruled search engine field completely - and suddenly disappeared from the spotlight.

Another sort of unknown factor for future is 'social bookmarking' - will human beings beat the search robots -- sort of 'good sites' vs 'seo, age, linkcount'.

[drako]

For example,
i'm having trouble getting most of my new websites that I've created into the Google index. I never had any problems before. New sites always appeared within 4 days or so in the index. All of them were already indexed 3 weeks ago in MSN! It seems googlebot is crawling in slow-motion. Existing, older sites have not been visited by googlebot for weeks either.

My clients are "not pleased" with the fact that their sites are still invisible in Google and the fact that i'm not able to give them a reasonable explanation.

These negative experiences will certainly not help Google in their upcoming struggle with MSN when IE 7 and Vista are launched.

However, I don't think google will fall within 1 years time. It takes a few years before people abandon their old heroes....

But google is not dead yet. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt... for now...

[Gimp]

Who cares? Just be ready to go with the flow. Nothing is forever so things will change. Be ready.

[whitenight]

Anyone see Ask's new commercial?

"Google isn't better, it's just more popular"(or something to that effect)

Wow! Let MSN or Yahoo hire that ad agency and run commercials that mention something about 'stale' or 'out-dated' and yes, Google could be losing the search wars in a year's time.

[mattg3]

Well, remember what happened to Altavista which ruled search engine field completely - and suddenly disappeared from the spotlight.

I remember buying the altavista book.. :)

The biggest plus for Google's continuing dominance is that humans are are first lazy and secondly don't change habits that easily.

You could find everything you needed with altavista if you used AND OR and NEAR. Google gave you a non geeky lazy option branded as geeky and it was fast.

[jrs_66]

The bad omen for Google is that MS is masterful at flexing their monopolistic muscle, and they do happen to have a huge upgrade on the horizon to help push this... bad news for google every way you look, Big daddy certainly hasn't helped their situation.

[luckychucky]

Maybe computers will start coming out with really good, cheap open-source Linux-based OS and free apps, with Firefox as the default browser. American automobile manufacturers used to rule the world, didn't they?...but look at them now. I'm dreaming of commoditized computers, and MSFT a dinosaur relic. Could happen. Maybe.

[pageoneresults]

Big daddy certainly hasn't helped their situation.

It surely hasn't. It's really the first time I've seen this big of an uproar in the webmaster community.

We can't compare Google to AltaVista, there is nothing similar between them with the exception that both have claimed the "King of the Hill" title. AltaVista's downfall was on 1999 October 29, Monday or what some refer to as Black Monday.

If this were 1999 and Google had a Big Daddy update, they might have some serious issues to contend with right now. But, it's 2006 and Google has it's claws so far into search that it would take an act of a higher power to change that.

Personally? I think Google will possibly lose a little bit of market share due to this but it won't be long before those people come back as Google is the King of Traffic right now and probably will be for quite some time. There is such a large spread between Google and the other players that it is going to take a lot of time to balance those numbers out.

Number one in a year? Sure. Unless Yahoo! or MSN do something totally different.

[Hissingsid]

I really don't think that having MSN Search as the default in the browser will make any difference. It's the default in my IE 6 - but I never use that Search button - I use either the Google toolbar or Yahoo Mail search box.

Don't you think if what you do is common Microshaft will take action to overcome it?

I do and I think that MS will reduce Google's dominance.

Sid

[M3Guy]

M$ have the ability to 'persuade' people to use their search, it wouldn't be too hard to add a line of code that made G load really slow in the browser and then after say 10 or 15 seconds of not getting the page you were looking for offer you a faster resource to use, namely M$

<? if url=google.com loadspeed=10% aftertime=15 offersite=msn.com redirect=yes>

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

... see you in court!

[caran1]

I find I get better answers on some subjects in Yahoo answers nowadays. Google search results give too much weightage to inbound links and age of website

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

That's right. There is not really anything to split the top three nowadays.

[gregbo]

I really don't think that having MSN Search as the default in the browser will make any difference. It's the default in my IE 6 - but I never use that Search button - I use either the Google toolbar or Yahoo Mail search box.

They may call more attention to the use of the search button in future IE releases.

One observation: I tried an IE search with a quoted song title, and it removed the quotes (and some of the query terms as well). I imagine this sort of thing will be fixed as users switch from other engines and bring their searching habits with them. (It worked correctly when typing the search into the MSN Search query field, although the results were not as comprehensive as G's or some of the other engines.)

One thing I can predict is that Google will be at it's biggest, in terms of worldwide usage and share price, long after it is in serious decline.

I wonder if that hasn't happened already.

[texasville]

Ina year? I wouldn't be surprised. All it really takes is a hook. People will run to anything stylish. Or with a hook.

[zafile]

"Will Google still be number one in a year's time?"

Probably yes.

Nevertheless, when Vista comes out, that will certainly be the start in Google's market share decline.

Google became number one not because of the anti-Microsoft crowd, Unix administrators and everything in between.

Google became number one simply because it was the default search service in all AOL browsers.

Therefore, to maintain its market share, Google will have to convince a lot of OEM's to change the default search service in IE7.

Will Google convince DELL? I don't think so. DELL makes all of its money from selling WINTEL stuff.

So yes, it seems Vista's release will mark the start of Google's market share decline.

[Peng]

Google is enjoying at the moment its peak and well popularity in the market and it is makings its own rules which is hurting lot of small webmasters because Google has habit to compromise with big fish.
There is only last chance for MSN to prove that it can come to new hopes which lot of people have attached to it.More than 95% will use msn at first but if they will not get the correct result the will explore and add google to search engine list and it will be permanent bye bye to MSN.So MSN has to prove and it will have short time to make good picture in users eyes and minds.

[Label_Lady]

It would be great to see a balance of power in the search world. But ultimately it's up to the consumer doing the search. We can speculate all we want. Just be ready for change on the search scene as nothing stays stagnant.