Search Engines

http://www.fireflimedia.com/search_engine_marketing.php

When you go online which search engine are you more likely to use?  Our options are practically unlimited when it comes to looking something up.  According to the book, “Search Engine Marketing Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site” written by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt, Google takes up 64.9% of the U.S.’s share in searches.  Yahoo! comes into second place with 18.8% of searches.  Do you know the engine differences?

Google first started out small and then grew as the Internet itself continued to grow.  Unlike some companies, Google did not go public until 2004 without the use of advertisements.  Like Facebook, Google grew through word of mouth.  Google offers an organic and paid search which is where a business has to decide which avenue to take so that the public has an easy time looking or “Googling” their business. 

Yahoo! provides more than the opportunity of just the searching capability.  Yahoo! offers news, shopping, e-mailing, and other functions.  These functions are easily accessible on Yahoo!’s home page, unlike Google’s homepage which focuses mostly on search.  In its competition with Google, Yahoo! is trying to expand their language format so that they can reach a larger audience outside the United States.

Bing is a third leading competitor in the search engine market.  Bing takes up about 9.4% of the U.S.’s searches.  Bing was first known as MSN Search; it then changed to Live Search, and finally evolved to what we know today as Bing.  Many businesses use Bing due to Microsoft’s organic search technology and its adCenter that is used for paid search. 

Who doesn’t remember AOL?  AOL Search is used by only 3% of U.S. searchers (being mostly used by AOL users).  AOL was once a partner with Google, but as it continued to grow and mature, AOL slowly separated itself and became more independent.  They are using their own capabilities to advertise companies with their new advertising network.

A final search engine you may be familiar with is Ask.com.  Ask.com was first founded as Ask Jeeves in 1996.  Unlike some search engines, Ask.com allows the searcher to enter a question into the search rather than a phrase or list of words.  The answers to the searcher’s question are then answered by a human editor that will try to select the best answer.  For businesses however, this search engine may not be the best to choose.

-Kendall Fagan