There was a major update for Google starting on 4/29. In true form, Google denied that the update had even happened. However, we now know that they did make an update and people are trying to figure out what the changes are all about. With each search engine update, more and more of the world stops to see what happened. This is because small business are increasingly reliant on the search engines for the livelihood. The Yellow Pages used to play this role, but as technology has advanced, the Internet has taken the place of the Yellow Pages as the source to find information about small businesses, services and products.
Google, in particular, has the dominant role as the search engine giant. This is because they have a superior product and the most market share. The more end-users turn to Google (over their competitors) the more important they become. Google is making the most money as an online advertiser and has a comfortable position as the leader in this technology field.
Bing would like the be the Internet leader in search, but has been struggling for a decade to catch up. Despite a massive rebranding campaign, hiring teams of experts, and a relentless pursuit of Google’s quality, the search results from Bing are consistently seen as inferior to Google. Thus, less users to go Bing for their daily Internet searching needs – resulting in lower revenues for Bing. Lower revenues then feed the cycle. Bing has less budget to promote the search engine and less resources to make the quality better. Thus, the cycle repeats.
How Google will fall from the position as the number 1 search engine is at this point unknown. Similar to the Yellow Pages, many small businesses have a love-hate relationship with the search giant. They need Google as a source of new business or they will fail. But they hate Google because they are so reliant on them for new business. This story has been repeated many times throughout history and will probably be repeated again. But for the current time period, Google remains the Internet giant to watch. And they just did an update earlier this month.
