Who are Google's 5 most significant competitors?
What makes Google's strategy more successful than its competitors' strategies?

Hi! Thanks for the question.

According to different market metrics, Google has the following
competitors in the search engine market share.

Nielsen Net Ratings:

Yahoo
MSN
AOL
Ask Jeeves
Overture
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156451


.comScore

Yahoo
AOL
MSN
Ask Jeeves
Overture
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156431 


Hitwise:

Yahoo
MSN Search
Excite 
Netscape
iWon
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/3099931 

--------------------------
In order to understand the success of Google?s strategy, we will go to
articles which analyzed steps made by Google.

a.) Branding:
?The presentation of Google as a noble and altruistic organization,
whose only concern is the honesty and integrity of the World Wide Web,
is not a two-cent branding technique. Up till now, search engines
rised and fell with the accuracy of their search results. Google's
branding strategy is a masterpiece terms of branding: By branding
itself as the morally superior search engine, they have safeguarded
themselves against a quick demise. If and when a competitor develops a
more relevant search algorithm, that competitor will instantly become
public enemy #1 purely by virtue of the threat it poses to the most
beloved search engine, Google.?

?Google Branding Strategy?
http://www.internet-marketing-research.net/google-branding-strategy.php


b.) Operations:
?Analysts say Google has been run frugally. It did not engage in the
massive advertising campaigns typical of so many dot-coms in 1999 and
early 2000, relying instead on word of mouth. Hence, it has not been
forced into the deep cutbacks that have hurt some of its rivals.?

?Search engines receive much of their revenues from advertising. Some
observers say Google has weathered the past year?s ad slump better
than its competitors because it relies on text-only ads linked to
keyword searches. This is a growing ad niche because of the strong
likelihood the user will be interested in the ad. Meanwhile, banner
ads, the scatter-shot approach used at many other search engines, have
become less profitable; many users find them intrusive and simply
ignore them.?

?Google says it receives the largest portion of its revenue from
licensing agreements with approximately 130 other companies. ?

?Searching for Google's success?
http://news.com.com/2009-1023_3-273704.html 


c.) Aggregation Strategy:
?Google Inc seeks to own quality aggregations of information. Create a
search facility on that information, make that aggregation a prime
site where loads of page views happen and place unobtrusive
advertising that is relevant to those pages.?

?Google now has three interesting information aggregations in
preparation: Blogger, Froogle and Google News. Google Web Search gives
us a clue as to what is going to happen to these three if they are
brought out of beta and put into mainstream action. Google Web Search
took these developmental steps: first aggregate and get the tools of
search and aggregation refined, then differentiate sections of this
aggregation for people around the world (using language, region and
country as ways of building differentiation for different markets),
and add unobtrusive advertising to every page of those aggregations
sold into each of the differentiated markets. After all, see what has
been done here to develop Google Web Search and you see the template
for Blogger, Froogle and News.?

?The Google Aggregation Strategy?
http://microdoc-news.info/home/2003/05/07.html 


---------------------------
Why is Google successful in its strategy as compared to its
competitors? Here are some of the reasons.

a.) ?Seth Godin, a leading authority on permission marketing and buzz
building, puts timing at the top of his list of reasons for Google's
success. Being a later mover meant that this was the "third wave" or
the "new, improved version," argues Godin. ?The first wave was the big
guys. The second wave (Ask Jeeves, etc.) got swamped in the noise of
the first wave. We were ready for version 3.??

b.) ?But in many cases, word of mouth travels best when trusted
authorities (what Godin calls "sneezers" in his colorful Unleashing
The Ideavirus) truly embrace a new product. For whatever reason,
Google seemed hipper than the available options, and many of us
noticed small but gratifying things they were implementing on their
site.?

c.) ?Many have pointed to Google's clean interface as an important
part of what resonated with users. Steve Thomas, CEO of Wherewithal, a
provider of enterprise search technology, argues that ?it's not so
much that Google made their product simple, but rather that they
actually marketed SEARCH. When's the last time you heard of Yahoo or
Excite spending money to convince people that their search results
were better? They seem to have completely abandoned the idea.?"

?Google Wins by Not Hiding the Banana?
http://www.traffick.com/article.asp?aID=29 


d.) ?? Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader says. "It's easy to
justify Google's being a stand-alone company. If you look at all the
things it's doing--search word optimization, news, Froogle, etc.--it's
a set of services that are mutually consistent. It leaves open the
possibility that the company can just keep adding best-in-class unique
services.?


e.) ??Even if it's selling keywords, no one's talking about Google as
the 900-pound gorilla. What's especially valuable is the goodwill it
has accumulated. Microsoft doesn't have that installed user base, nor
does it have carte blanche to do whatever it likes.?

?What is Google worth??
http://news.com.com/2030-1069_3-5112098.html 


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Google Answers Researcher

Gee, Smueller!

Google doesn't have any competition ... because of its superior server
to the searcher.

Have you looked at "Google Today" ????
     - ://www.google.com/corporate/today.html

They're improving on their own superiority daily, so it's hard to
answer that question.

Serenata

Yahoo will be splitting from Google in a couple of months, and with
their new search technology they will instantly become the biggest
threat to Google's share of the search traffic.  Never count out
Microsoft either...they're the one company that has the resources to
start from zero, enter a new market, and totally obliterate the
established leaders, as their Internet Explorer product did to
Netscape.

Google's awesome, but there are still a lot of areas for improvement. 
Google was also proof that if someone makes a better search engine,
people will flock to it.  So Google's eternal superiority is by no
means guaranteed.

I don't know how big they are in terms of numbers, but there are at
least two up-and-coming search engines that are quite good:
http://www.alltheweb.com
http://www.vivisimo.com

There's an article in Wired about a "Gaggle Chasing Google" ...

   - http://wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,61902,00.html

That should tell you something. But MSN and Yahoo, specifically
mentioned, are trying to play catch up with Google's notoriously good
service.

There is much speculation that 2004 is the "Year of the Search Engine
Wars". I am not wearing blinders, but I simply know that Google works
hard to present the most relevant informaton. Millions of users a day
agree with that assessment.

Serenata

What Is Google Worth?
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=888

The Buzz on Google's IPO
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=981

I agree with MVGuy that Vivisimo is definitely an up and comer.

Vivisimo is not technically a search engine, but a clustering engine.
It automatically categorizes search results but does not support it's
own database. It uses the databases of Overture, MSN and Lycos, among
others and then categorizes the results.

The technology is interesting, because it actually compliments
Google's existing technology. If Google was to acquire the rights to
apply the Vivisimo clustering technology to it's database and search
technology, it could make for an interesting product.

However, if Microsoft or Yahoo employs the technology, in combination
with an impoved search engine, it could make for a competitive
product.

While Google is a great SE, it has many faults as well, many based on
lack of common sense searching. They seem to outsmart themselves
sometimes. For example, searching on Google for "painting estimates"
looking for a site I had done business with in the past, I could not
find the site. It turns out, the site was
http://housepaintingestimates.com. So, out of curiosity, I tried
searching for "House Painting Estimates". Not only was it not listed
#1 (as common sense may recommend), but it wasn't anywhere to be
found. ONly by searching for the exact string
"housepaintingestimates.com" did it return the page, and if you have
that information you really wouldn't be doing a search in the first
place. So while Google may be great, it has some basic fatal flaws
which still keep me using Yahoo and MSN just as much.