key excerpts from New Media Age, 11/1/07. “NMA Report – Competition.” Greg Brooks. Sub. required:
“One of the biggest problems facing search engines is Google’s sheer dominance of the sector. How have the latest moves from Yahoo! and Microsoft affected this?
Google’s domination of the UK paid-search market has gone unbroken since AdWords burst onto the scene in 2000. Advertisers would like nothing better than to see some healthy competition for their search budgets. But six months since Yahoo! introduced Panama, and over a year since Microsoft launched AdCenter in the UK, Google’s grip is tighter than ever…
“Google’s lead in terms of volume continues to grow, as the latest statistics from Hitwise show (see graph). Agencies say it’s the only must-have for clients…
The emergence of Panama is a strong indication that a competitive market is driving improvements to relevancy and forecasting. But it remains to be seen if anyone can challenge Google’s position,” says Michael Stroud, head of online marketing at Lloyds TSB…
Daniel Kerzner, regional director for north-west Europe at Starwood Hotels, adds, “Google remains a solid, reliable volume driver for us. Its dominance is a potential threat to business, however, if it continues to exploit its lone position in the marketplace”…
…the figures don’t make a pretty picture for Google’s rivals. Hitwise data for September 2007 shows that Google handled 85.2% of all searches in the month, with Yahoo! on 4.91% combined, Microsoft own-brand search commanding 3.95% of search, and Ask.com down to 3.55%…
“AdCenter has tried to leapfrog Google with more targeting features to drive efficiency, but has left basics like attracting more customers behind,” says Paul Bongers, head of paid search at BT, which uses Zed to plan and buy its search campaigns. “You can have the greatest search engine in the world, but if the customers aren’t there it won’t matter…
So far the new features haven’t enabled Yahoo! and MSN to gain on Google, which has actually increased its dominance of UK searches
