For the second half of 2004, we monitored very closely the performance of about 15 online media properties in the eCreativa network and what we noticed was that Google was slipping in terms of driving traffic to our properties. Prior to that we used to think that Yahoo and MSN were also-rans since Google was driving over 75% of the traffic.
Our argument was that unless you had an email address with Yahoo or Hotmail or you were looking for weather or stock market performance, you would not bother with searching at Yahoo or MSN. But then we started to see that we were getting a lot of traffic from both Yahoo and MSN. That is when we started to monitor the quality of results improving significantly in both search engines. It was around the same time that Yahoo started to go aggressively after blogs (we launched about half-a-dozen blogs during this period) and we were amazed by the speed at which Yahoo indexed blogs and websites that the blogs pointed to. (Related article: Value of blogs)
Now we have more comprehensive data to support what we noticed. According to Keynote Systems, Yahoo! and MSN search engines are closing the gap with Google by improving the search experience for consumers and that will lead to increased usage for those sites. According to the study, Google maintains its clear leadership position in the search industry, again leading the Keynote Customer Experience Rankings. However, Yahoo! and MSN have made significant gains against Google since the last Keynote search engine study, published in May 2004. Yahoo!, which remains in second place across the Keynote CE Rankings and other leading indicators, launched an expanded local search service and a new search results page after the last study and, as a result, significantly improved its overall user experience.
The quality of local search results is a major frustration to many search engine users. Across all search sites, almost one in four (22%) users complain that the local results are not what they are looking for or are not ranked appropriately. Yahoo! showed significant improvement in the ranking of the quality of its local search results, tying Google in leading the industry in this key category.
As a direct result of their improvements in user experience, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask Jeeves also saw a notable increase in their standing in the Keynote Future Usage Index, which measures the likelihood of consumers to use a search site as their primary search tool and to return to the site in the future. The index also measures a user’s likelihood to recommend a search site to others or to use a search toolbar offered by the site. Google maintained its position as the leader in the Future Usage Index, but did not improve its overall standing.
Since the last study, Yahoo! has boosted the number of users who said they would consider the site as their primary search engine by more than 20% and MSN by almost 30%. More than 81% of Yahoo! users and 61% of MSN users said they would return to those sites in the future, as compared to just 72% of Yahoo! users and 55% of MSN users stating so in the previous Keynote study.
What we are seeing is that Google is gradually transforming itself into an advertising company and its search engine is only a utility that helps it get there. This is further explained by how aggressively Google is recruiting nanopublishers. We would not be surprised if Google is able to exploit the "power of many" as Amazon and Ebay have done.
So where is Google slipping? We have talked about this in our other article on How to get high ranking in Google search results. The improvements made by Yahoo and MSN are now exposing the inherent weaknesses in the PageRank algorithm. And while we will continue to use Google as a search engine, we often turn to Yahoo and MSN when Google simply returns results that are too "popular" but irrelevant or not current.
Recommended article: Search engine advertising strategy