How big is Google

What %age of all searches go thro Google

[gstewart]

I'm a Google fan. Free listings and fast relevant answers to most searches. Brilliant! Little wonder other SE's want to form alliances. Nobody seriously competes with them - almost all hits at the sites I'm involved with come from Google and their associates.
So how much bigger do they have get before they're a monopoly? And should we care?

[jackofalltrades]

Should we care?

yes and no.

If Google can index the world and his brother and turn relevant results most of the time then im happy, both as a surfer and a webmaster.

But if they start to abuse their position then we´ve all got a problem. Who would replace them?

JOAT

[bateman_ap]

There would always be another engine to step out the wings. If search results deteriorate, and I mean real results, not the obviously commercial, highly seo'd results such as travel and casinos then people would find something else. You just have to look back at some of the engines that used to rule the world, AV anyone?

[rcjordan]

The biggest (somewhat credible) number I've seen is 55% of searches worldwide.

[Dino_M]

if you include all the other engines (yahoo!) that are powered by google this figure is closer to 80%

[gstewart]

There would always be another engine to step out the wings

It would be nice if the free market could guarantee this. But just think of the position of Microsoft, say, in its marketplace!

[Brad]

>>55% of searches worldwide

Any numbers on English language and including all their partners?

[bateman_ap]

Yeah but I think people are so set with MS cos they have their software installed, clients expect reports to be sent in excel etc and people are comfortable working with their software. It would be a huge job to retrain everyone to use linux etc.

However it isn't that big a job to use a new url to search with!

[rcjordan]

>yahoo

The 55% did take yahoo into account.

[gstewart]

55% of searches worldwide

My various sites are well listed in Google's competitors - and are higher up their rankings too! But I sure get a much higher percentage of my hits than 55% from the Google gang ..

However it isn't that big a job to use a new url to search with!

Good point, bateman_ap

[jackofalltrades]

To be honest - Google seems to have a sense of humour (alternative languages...etc).

I dont think there are many large orgs out there that can match that, so at the very least Google isnt the blood sucking mulitnational that most of them are! :)

As long as the keep the focus on the end user and not bleeding cash out of people left right and centre, then Id be quite happy for the big G to rule the web! :)

JOAT

ps that opinion might change depending how this update goes... ;)

[rcjordan]

> higher percentage of my hits than 55%

Like WG says [webmasterworld.com], it's all in the market/demographics.

<added>
My best engine ever was NBCi. *sob*

[Crush]

I just need to look at my logs. My site is in 7 languages. Before I got hits from all over the shop. Now as the word spreads about google locals are giving up on there local laguage SE's and using google too. It is unstoppable! google be.de.nl. etc etc.

A lot of local european search engines use google anyway.
I would say 70% of my traffic comes from there.

You want the proof...check this out:

google.com 1,662 4
yahoo.com 642 4.5
www.google.de 418 3.4
altavista.com 277 3.8
www.google.it 218 4.7
msn.com 188 4.6
google.co.uk 157 4.6
www.google.fr 123 4.8
www.google.at 71 3.7
aol.com 64 1.4
ke.voila.fr 57 5.4
www.google.be 56 3
www.google.ca 49 4.6
www.google.nl 47 4.1
new.net 45 4.1
www.google.ch 42 3
www.google.ie 40 3.9
search.msn.it 32 5.6
brisbane.t-online.de 27 3.1
search.rambler.ru 26 3.9
www.yandex.ru 25 5
overture.com 24 5.6
netscape.com 24 3.5
alltheweb.com 24 7.5
szukaj.wp.pl 23 3.4
lycos.com 22 5.5
search-dyn.tiscali.it 21 6.8
search.msn.de 21 4.1
buscador.terra.es 21 4.7
suche.lycos.de 20 2.1
szukaj.interia.pl 19 6.2
gator.com 18 6.4
dogpile.com 17 3.6
google.co.il 15 4.8
oingo.com 15 3.1
altavista.onet.pl 14 3.2
metacrawler.com 14 4.5
suche.fireball.de 14 4.9
freeserve.com 12 7
ixquick.com 10 2.7
vachercher.lycos.fr 10 7.5
search.com 9 2.1
google.com.ar 9 3.3
www.altavista.pl 8 2.9
www.google.cl 7 1.3
google.co.nz 7 3.9
earthlink.net 7 2.9
sm.aport.ru 6 2.5

[hutchins13]

Related thread:

Top five search engines [webmasterworld.com]