Topix CEO Rich Skrenta thinks someone out there can compete with Google, and he offered suggestions on how that might happen (hint: think vertically).
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| Beating The Unbeatable Google |
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Choose your poison: Google in search or Google in advertising. If you've ever heard of the phrase "Hobson's choice", picking a competitive ground with Google looks more like no choice at all.
Skrenta thinks differently, even though it was he who suggested Google is the environment a couple of months back. His most recent thoughts on beating Google read more like a primer of why it can't be done head to head.
"A conventional attack against Google's search product will fail," Skrenta said. "They are unassailable in their core domain."
Kind of tosses the 'how to beat Google' theme out the window straightaway.
"You need both a great product and a strong new brand," he writes. "Both are hard problems."
The shoemaker Nike demonstrated this. Over the years as Phil Knight and company built the brand, it took quite a while before they were confident enough to put the swoosh on their products like hats and shirts without the word 'Nike'.
So you can't beat Google on search. You can't beat them on brand; Google is a dictionary word that to Internet users means search. It's like traveling in the South and ordering a soda at lunchtime. Everything is a Coke, even if it's a Sprite or a Mr. Pibb.
Where next? Skrenta suggested the vertical approach without coming out and calling it that:
You need to position your product to sub-segment the market and carve out a new niche. Or better, define an entirely new category. See Ries on how to launch a new brand into a market owned by a competitor. If it can be done in Ketchup or Shampoo, it can be done in search.
Google came about as many people sought to solve a great problem of the rapidly growing Internet with search. Once Google emerged by doing what people wanted - giving them a quality result immediately - most competitors fell by the wayside. Yahoo is the closest and they still trail Google by roughly 20 percent in the US search market.
That's general web search. Vertical search has become a rising field; witness the heated competition and product launches in the local search segment alone. Healthcare stands out with sites like Kosmix and Healthline delving into quality resources for their search results.
That's sub-segmenting the market. Skrenta nails the wisdom needed here by observing "The editorial value of search is in the index, not the interface." Google has proven that less is more with a minimalist approach.
Keeping that approach in mind goes along with Skrenta's later points: users tend to want to type two words in a box, and they aren't interested in fancy-schmancy "clusters, or tags, or categories, or directory tabs, or pulldowns. Ever."
Beating Google? Probably not going to happen right away. The winners in search will probably be the hyper-focused verticals, which makes sense. When creating an online business, entrepreneurs try to fill a niche. Search should work out the same way.
About the author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.
Follow me on Twitter, and you can reach me via email at dutter @ webpronews dot com. Why not
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Comments
دردشة
دردشة
I love Google so much
دردشة
thaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks
realy from my harts
دردشة
thanks mr goooooooooooogle
Nothing Stays the Same
Nothing ever stays the same, and like anything else, the coming months and years will dictate how valid any company including Google stays.
Companies need to stay relevant to stay afloat. Google will need to comtinually revamp it's game in order to stay afloat, which it has done a decent job at so far.
Google
I am not sure if it is wise to try and beat Google...it is better to work with their rules.
Beat Google
Beat google? Come on.....
google
http://www.sa-l.com
thank's google
Feelings on Google
I think google illustrates the power of marketshare. Their search engine is the most difficult to get listed on. I've been trying to get my site www.communicatebetter.blogspot.com/ indexed on google for a long time, but still no luck.
I feel that no company can stay at the top forever, there will be a new company to topple google in the same manner google came and toppled yahoo. But as for now, all hail the might and power of google!!!
Beating Google - in which sense?
This post is bouncing back and forth from beating google in a market share sense and 'beating google' in an SEO sense. I think, from a market share perspective, there is always room for new ideas. There was a time without Google, just as there was a time without laser hair replacement and Girls Gone Wild. The point is, Google makes unprecedented profits from their PPC models but 'online business idea creation' is exploding on the internet. There are hundreds of thousands of new ideas on the internet where investors are willing to fork out big dollars. Ultimately, someone will build a model, heavily funded, that will rival Google or the entire Google algorithm methodology. The common concensus is that this target local search but who knows? A new concept is just that - a concept that arises, grows virally and overtakes a market - something that everyone later says 'why didn't I think of that'.
As for beating Google in an SEO sense, which is more my cup of tea, I completely agree with the posters who rely on content for rankings. Content and relevance is ultimately what Google is aiming for in their organic searches - as another poster mentioned, just go to their patents and you will find some surprising information. Google cannot monitor or eliminate ALL black hat techniques, this is why you see sites in the top ten that are not relevant to your search. Sure it's frustrating, I agree, but if you want YOUR site to be at the top of the rankings, you can do so by applying yourself and doing a little work. Remember, these 'bunk' sites are not getting any ClickDensity - in most cases, browsers immediately hit the back button when they spot a link-laden black hat site. If you make your site readable and informative, browsers will at least stay and start to read your site, giving you more weight.
The business owner Guitarbug posted about local search black hat - this is becoming morre common now that 'local search' is becoming more popular as mentioned in my first paragraph. This is why I simply help the rankings of my site by using region oriented keywords instead of local engines. One site, a friendès Great Dane kennel site, is #1 in Yahoo and #12 in Google for "[state] Great Danes". All I did was change some content and change her index title from "xxcompany namexx" to "[state] Great Danes - xxcompanynamexx". If you focus on relevance and content you can beat black hat. Another example is a carbonless forms website I helped out - a couple RELEVANT links and adding RELEVANT copy while cleaning up code and changing URL titles - and the site is a modest 1-10 in Google depending on the day/datacenter. Arguably, carbonless forms is not a genre that is likely to be black hatted but you may be surprised. Further, there is direct competition with huge merchant sites that have PR4+, 1000's of indexed pages and 10,000's of incoming links.
In summary - Google is a monolithic company with huge market share, but they are not omnipotent - and they know it. Itèll ony take a couple colege students or basement-dwelling techies to come up with an idea that will be the next Google. History repeats - and then repeats again.
Where you Can Beat Google
I tend to agree there is one area where Google can be beaten. It revolves around the idea that the bigger the machine, the less control the machine has of their smallest components.
Just like an elephant can easily trip up on small animals, Google has difficulty delivering the right results when it comes to Local Search and has a difficult time keeping information updated, due to the fact that it used various algos that do not reflect currently quality or factual information for any given product or service.
Google is still the best
My old man at home doesn't know much about search engine, but he told me that Google can deliver precise results when he search for what he want as compare to Yahoo and MSN. :)
افضل منتدى خليجي سعودي
thanks
Content and Google.
Oh and for people who think you beat GOOGLE with Content..
You don't understand the Internet or the Concept.
Google is great because of SPEED. The content is what you want on the OTHER end of the line. You want the intermediary to be as minimal as possible.
So if you think you are going to beat google with some "Content" driven site, you're banging your head against the wall.
When you call information, do you want the operator to recite lines of shakespeare prior to giving you the number you seek?
Hilarious.
Google.
In terms of what the company ACTUALLY does, Google can not be beat.
People flock to something because it works.
In terms of a stock trading at a 32 p/e ratio and insiders selling it like it's crack.
That part I'm not real happy about considering your standard "retirement" mutual fund crowd .. you know that silent majority of workers who complete contributions to some fund.. that have no idea what the fund buys or sells...
Seem to have been the biggest buyers over the past few months.
An uptick would be nice.. Otherwise somebody better tell schmidt to knock off the building of the palace<g>
Please Stop Dreaming...
The best way to beat Google is with content and a real website. There are many ways to improve your websites without going into black-hat techniques. Look for their filed patents and you will find very useful information if you can understand the jargon.
Learn how to get your website online here...
thank u..........
thank u..........
Google is beatable
Google can be beaten all you need is whole new concept.Remember Google are on top because they brough whole new concepts like pagerank.My point is if somebody is able to bring some concepts which can refine the results for relevance then they can be beaten.
Pagerank can now be manipulated by buying links and there are several pitfalls in their algorithm, so, just focus to fill those holes and beat google.
Although I confess, bringing new concept is very difficult thing to do.
Google the best
I love Google so much
thank u,,,,,,
Google Local. Why can it be manipulated ?
Hello from local small business America! I thought google local was great when it first came out. This gave us local small business's a chance to be in the running with the big fish for free. I own a small local pest control company www.antts.biz and we use to come up in the local seach box for free! Now you have these companies manipulating the google local free system by charging giant monthly fees to put you higher in the free local seach. I got a call from one of these rip off companys and asked how they could get us listed in a city we did not have a office in ? They told me, "All you need to do is know someone who works in a store or just lives in another city or town and we can use that address" Is this wrong or what ? I am so tired of the big companies moving us down the list by means of cheating the system. C.D.
Google is Invincible
So, who will be the 'One' ?
Who will be the 'One' which has the capacity to beat google ?
Or would it be a strategic formation coming out to give Google a real run ?
Google will stay on top
PPC Advertising Alternative- carve out large piece of online ad
Why fight Google? I feal so many are busy just being jealous of anyone who succeeds, innovates or leads. Bill Gates or Google- give them respect where it belongs.
Sure, search results need to be made more relevant. However, rather than fighting with budgets which can't compete with those the giants have- either you:
1. Innovate and they'll buy you out for nice sum
2. Different approach. By this I mean not new algorithm.
Think: Google or Yahoo or MSN. they all have a market due to a service of use they provide for free. Their email (or other service) users will always see that SE and no other when they return to use their preferred service.
The answer lies in service.
Google innovated the best PPC model and this is their core income. This IS their business. Search is the service to attract the market for their advertisers. To go beating them you'll need to build your market and:
A. get a huge publisher network showing your search engine not the giant's one. especially large portals. if they're not contracted to the SE... they'll want good compensation NOW, not in 10 years. so you'll need simultaneously -
B. a huge advertiser network. They'll want to see a good reason why they should use your system. they'll want:
C. access to loads of targeted visitors. (publisher network & your own URL visitors).
In my humble opinion, if you want to gain substantial market share from any of the SE, the approach is to provide a better and innovative advertising monetization model. A better PPC with incentive to click, with 100% fraud free, with non-aggressive and a non-intrusive visitor (end-user) experience and where everyone gets something out of it. Where we grow a huge & accurate detailed DB of end-user records (they have good reason to register- you can be sure), where it unclutters websites and yet they can monetize nicely with cleaner look and useful offer. especially hot and attractive for community type sites and huge portals. and much more...
Important is to remember, that behind search there are services attracting the searcher or visitor.
Web2.0 trend is to go free services.
Communities are exploding in growth.
The new kind of search- local search, if you please, is looking like personal recommendations and bookmarks.
Better search (and better bookmarking filtering out spam/ ads) will evolve from here. But these communities are the new visitor-glue, the new free service potential.
But they need good monetization model. otherwise they turn into crap services and junk posting sites.
My model is targeted for $1B-2B annual PPC gross rev. with 36% net.
(I have innovated a financial model on these lines and a full bizplan. If you'd like to partner & sponsor beta creation you may reach me via the contact you'll find on one of my sites: www.HaircuttingSecrets.com/products.html - only serious investors please, with credentials)
But, sure, the above is not pure search. Search will evolve for ever. Always someone will improve and have his algorithm purchased.
If your interest is pure public service then do an algorithm. Sell to Google. or donate it.... tomorrow spammers will develop a bypass and you can write another algorithm for cleaner results. and so on....
Search - whichever best JV - can be integrated into my model. Mine into theirs.
SE giants want new models to better grab online-ad-market share from Google. From eachother. Mobile, video, services of each kind. the key lies in services. FREE SERVICES. With strong glue factor and incentives. and in monetising with ads. in a better way.
That's where the money is.
Google Can Be Beaten
If you happen to notice, google's search are really not that good. Everytime I search for something in google I always end up looking at something I am not looking for.
So instead of using google search, I look up into well indexed directories for the kind of informations I want. I think Google can be beaten if someone out there can come up with a powerful niche search engine.
The future of search engine lies in well indexed directories where searching can become as easy as 1 2 3. Would you want to go through all the search result pages? I don't think I would want to waste my time doing that.
Its nice to see someone
Its nice to see someone stand-up to Google... www.mapjack.com
If not we'll all be eating Taco Bell and living in a Starbucks Condo in 2050.
adsense article
dont worry get all about google adsense here..
http://extralinks2u.com
Google
I agree with the post below.. Think about this! I believe Google is wrecking the web! Why? Becaause now we have pages.. millions of them whose sole purpose is to make money.. not provide information to the searcher.. Why is Google still listing porn? It's real easy to certain words/sites ect.. How many search results in the top 20 are revelant to what you searched for? There are 2 groups of people involved here.. Those who want to make money from the web and those (the large majority) who want information they searched for.. No! I think Google is certainly beatable..
google relevant search results
About 1 in 20 are related and even as to the information curve whether the individual returns there in real-time are ahead or naturally so a little unrevised or updated and so behind. Maybe two in 20!
Put simply somebody's not at home over at Google it appears. Is it possible that the huge arm of algorithim is going to sweep up the mess all in one approach and surprise us all?
I have an idea they are sticking to their guns as for intentionally grabing the money and alas just too proud to fare with Yahoo!, Webcrawler, Ask and others who do a service.
Just one misstep and they are down
One screw up and they are no different from the dogfood manufacturers are today.
Give them a better product and people will switch.
Just one Misstep?
Hit back at Google
Its fair to say I have enjoyed making a good living from the internet over the last 8 years promoting various insurance companies and manufactures in the UK. Consumer awarness and confidence in online shopping is beginning to show solid growth and we all understand the important roll Google has played over the years. I would however welcome and support the emergance of any real competitor to Google who would stick to the clean no nonsence Search Engine Model that gave Google its success. The amount of time wasting websites, designed to take advantage of Google,s Adsence program will soon spoil what should be a clean, enjoyable and quality search for relevant information or products. I would love to see Google remove such site's from any free ranking positions, but fear this will never happen due to the revenue this is producing for all involved. We need a dominent force to come along who will resist the temtation of a google buy out in years to come.
But is Google the true reflection of the greed of man? Can anyone break that?
BEATING GOOGLE
Did any one thought SEARCH ENGINES will be a great business until it was invented?
So, don't think what google is doing is the END OF OUR ROAD. We believe there are better ways to serve community on a WEB SEARCH.
Do you know how Advertiser pages for Adwords, Pay per click (ation) work? Are they the people giving best service, answer is always NO.
So, consumer or the genuine seller are not the criteria for WEB SEARCHES, that mean all of us are loosers. Yet, big search engines get richer without producing the correct out put.
Simply think of a normal WEB PAGE. Will it have a good ranking through Google or Yahoo? If you say, YES, then you have the answer. Tha is what we aim to do. SO, WE CAN DO IN A A BETTER WAY for customers and genuine sellers.
We are interested in people who are committed to succeed and also who would like to INVEST on this project. Please contact us through David A Utter, author.
Are they the people giving best service, answer is always NO.
1. KMA!! 2. $12,600.00 in PPC in 2.5 years. Our products as well as site are always complemented by customers who use our service, for its content as well as appearance. We are the oldest company in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for our product and machines and have much repeat business. The machine we use are the best you can find in the USA. Matter of fact, they only make 4-6 a year of this machine and we own 40. Our highest ranking in Google is second page for 3 keyword phrases. Some of the worst companies fill the first and second pages in the natural. 70% of our traffic comes from Google. Most our searchers and business come from PPC. I don't like it, but its the way it is. At least for now. So again... KMA !!
ask.com
Hey everyone. I know exactly who is out there trying to defeat google. Why it's ask.com of course. ask.com is my search engine of choice, and I have even started to devote a site just for it, www.freewebs.com/whereisjeeves is the site. I would love to see some more ask.com supporters out there.
Beating Google
Its very easy to beat Google. In fact nobody is sincerely making attempts in that direction because they think google is invincible.
From the users view point we all know that google is nothing but a very huge collection of garbage and dustbin material, with a very very small percent of genuinely usefull stuff. You search for something and you are returned with tons of waste and then you have to sort out for hours to find something usefull. Not many are fortunate to get what they had been looking for. Google links to anything and everything on net and makes money by dumping the waste for free.
In fact this huge burden on google is its weakest point. More focused search results with well sorted out quality link pages, human interaction and touch in search results, and helping the user to reach rapidly to his destined search is desperately needed on today's web. Most of people are tired and frustated of Googles poor quality services and monopoly. There is a desperate need and space for a change.
NEED ACTION NOT A TALKING POINT
I think you are more like how I think.
Mainly search engines are for information. When they cannot deliver easy commercial applications, will they ever provide a good service to non paid information.
We should able to get more realistic information result from a SEARCH ENGINE. Some thing that can deliver what customers need to see.
I am more concern on commercial applications. If I am to buy some thing on a a reasonable price, I never get to see correct suppliers. Only those who have either paid for huge campaigns or those who have manupulated so called search engine mechanism to be leaders in the organic structure.
It is time for us to defeat this structure, may be we should get together and find a way. I may need more people like you and also investors to succeed, hope you are with me. I am open to drive this task.
Yes, thank you
You are right. One time I went on google looking for the address for an author, and I ended up going on to a site about buying toasters within the first click.
Hoowever, I disagree on the competitor thing. ask.com is trying to beat out google, and I'm all for it.
I use
I use Searchalot
www.searchalot.com I think Google is the government spying on what people are searching for. For example the search phrase "the truth about 911" would probably make a special red light flash on Bushes desktop!
I agree
I agree. Google seems to well-known and has to many advitisings for someone not to get suspitious. And google is EVERYWHERE, like on www.griswold.ct.k12.us and whenever you misspell an address google is there. It would make sense that the government is really behind the entire thing.
compete with google
A lot of the comments seem to reflect on making money.. Are we interested in 'search' or 'making money' from search.. cus Google do both well.. Most people are just looking for information... Forget your business.. they are a (very) small part of the internet... sorry folks but we are.. The average Joe just want 'info' or 'answers' to questions.. That's what Google did first... then it figured out how to make money from its results.. Search itself has heaps of room for improvement.. but as one person below pointed out, the sponsored results are now driven by cash and not content.. I know how they can be improved.. like get rid of the spam and porn pages to start with.. but NOT if you think about making money first! ~ That's the primary difference between Microsoft and Google.. Everything from Microsoft costs you money.. Everything from Google is basically free.. They just figured out how to make money from something that is free.. John
Google
Internet marketing and google are still relatively new to me but I think Search Big Daddy has the potential of competing with Google.
I know people pay a pretty penny to advertise on Google and not everyone can afford to compete.
Search Big Daddy has an advantage point system and city search engine portals. I haven't ran across any other city search engine portals but like I said I still relatively new. I can say I do love searching Orlando vs the www.
COMPETITION TO LARGE SEARCH ENGINES
Although it is a big challenge, it is possible to be competitive with GOOGLE.
We are interested in INVESTORS who would like to invest in a similar program. We appreciate very much the way Google Search Engine has helped people to find things quickly but there is a way we could give VALUE FOR MONEY to our customers and advertisers in a equitable manner. High competition will bring in a near perfect marcket situation for all of us to be winners. We intend to bring in Search Engine / Directories criteria together with marketing concepts and complex analysis to succeed.
Competing With Google
The way to compete with Google is to drill down and down into one category. For example let's say Golf!
Your search engine would be a Golf search engine and it would break down and categorize everything about Golf. The front page would have a search engine function (that would only search golf related web sites, no false matches or wild goose chases as can happen with Google), and it would also have news headlines about Golf right there in your face, and category breakdowns like all of the famous golfers, stats, individual page links, upcoming tournaments, etc. So that everything golf would be only one or two clicks away for the user.
You may not be able to outGoogle Google, but you can beat them in ease of use.
Beating Google
I think that when it comes to my personal website, I rank better with local search terms on Ask.com and Msn.com. When you type in Quad Cities Roofing they access my interior pages, helping people avoid having to click more than two to three times to find what they need. If they continue on their path I think that they are capturing the interior pages of websites better. I think people still like to keep their money local on most items. I think the key is to recognize the position of the computer geographicly when people are entering search terms. If you type in "Siding" the search results shouldn't come back with content from California. The number one item on the search list should be your local siding company's website.
competing with google
A good start would be to make all searches that were performed through my search engines be anonymous and make it a point that it was this way and that Google's was not.
Not much but it is something.
Gary
Blogging X
Hi Rich,
Hope I am the one with the solution to blog X. I've always found that one step over the top gets you back at the bottom. So in that comparison, Thinking that Google is their own demise. Let them charge. Let them start charging customers to even do a search. Might even suggest that to them. Thinking here that if you put up a promotion to tie the customer into your search engine for a nice rebate and promotional gift certificates with a contract. Then the incentives will even the playing feild and possibly cause X to overspend to compete.
Thanks
competing
SUGGESTION= Googe
ask.com
that site is competing against google. If you want proof go to youtube.com and search videos for ask.com commercials. There is one called
google isn't better, it's just more popular
which is totally true.
ask.com with the wikipedia artifice
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales wants to beat Google at its winning game.He cites “obvious flaws” in Google search as motivation. He though was to arrive at some solution early 2007 and so far it’s April and he’s still only all over the super information road but not if a bit on the (big) map!
Wales was quoted saying 'Google is very good at many types of search, but in many instances it produces nothing but spam and useless crap. Try searching for the term ‘Tampa hotels’, for example, and you will not get any useful results, he say's.'
Wikipedia in nearly all instances is no better!
Now Powerset is poised to outgun Google according to Paypal founder Peter Thiel.
So there are those and Topix and next also owners of Ask are poised.
For Paul Fevier submitter of Google Imperium I suggest to you MSN is not the power engine it’s Ask. Microsoft admits it. They sought possible merger with Yahoo for some stake in Yahoo! to use their engine and watch close Paul, I think they will just no idea when.
Start-ups are not the only search engines hoping to outgun Google. Ask's owner Barry Diller, CEO IAC/InterActive Corp, underscored the $11 billion market cap “integrated conglomerate” commitment to growing search engine Ask.com, at the expense of competitors, such as search engine leader Google.
Reference the comments viewed here at http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p=825
This link recently about IAC Interactive Corp http://www.sptimes.com/2006/04/25/Business/IACInteractive_Corp_n.shtml
My own site even at http://www.twentyzeros.com/wikipedia about Wikipedia bungling again another simple and though broad subject in an issue of this decade clearly substantiates Wales is unable to think at alll abstractly regardless that maybe he's formatted.
So in summary let's forget about MSN or Wiki though MSN has a proven track record!
Beating the Google Goliath
Weren't these the same comments being said just a few years back about Microsoft? They were dominating everything and making inroads into all sorts of markets. It won't be one big thing that beats Google, but likely many small ones. Think in terms of the fall of Rome. Markets change and shift and as Google gains more mass, they will be less nimble and responsive.
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