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Beating The Unbeatable Google

By WebProNews Staff - Tue, 03/27/2007 - 07:50

Topix CEO Rich Skrenta thinks someone out there can compete with Google, and he offered suggestions on how that might happen (hint: think vertically).

Beating The Unbeatable Google

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.

News Tags: Search, Google, wikipedia, Rich Skrenta

94 Comments

By Apple Roof Cleaning Tampa (WPN reader) - Mon, 05/11/2009 - 09:43

Google will crush all Pretenders

Google is like Wal Mart is.
An American institution.
n 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...

By دردشة صوتية (WPN reader) - Fri, 01/30/2009 - 22:33

Re: Britain’s Floods

Its difficult to say, with Google's unstoppable core, if they will be 'beaten' in any near future, but I believe the new SE will be a combination of Portal (yes, they are getting popular again!) / Web 2.0 social network / SE.
دليل مواقع

By Richard Mongler (WPN reader) - Wed, 12/31/2008 - 03:46

I've seen google

I've seen google alternatives and they generally aren't any better.

By بلياردو (WPN reader) - Tue, 12/23/2008 - 22:09

بلياردو

thank u

By Guest (WPN reader) - Sun, 11/23/2008 - 01:06

Beating The Unbeatable Google

I absolutely luuuuuurve google and how clever their system is for finding the best results. I think Yahoo! Directory and the search engines became a little complacent around the time of Google's birth, hence the reason why Google did so well. Instead of doing a job 75% they have, and still do, reach for the 100%, and have stored it all in searchable database in their "googol" formula. Facebook (in the UK) and Bebo (both UK and USA) and MySpace (USA) are now clear competitors as users time shift towards social networking sites. Funnily enough they are all powering the search on each one now! The mobile social networking market is about to explode.........Google is on it like a car bonet! What with Google Maps, Google Business Applications, etc it won't be long, surely, until Google creates the higher platform that will incorporate everything on the internet. Very interesting article, thanx Web Pro News - kind regards, have a lovely day, Sue x

Freelance Google Expert

http://www.seowebmarketing.co.uk

By Guest (WPN reader) - Sun, 11/09/2008 - 20:03

re: Beating The Unbeatable Google

i look forward to the day when someone really does challenge google, not because i have an axe to grind other than the adwords programme but because when competition gets going then the consumer really benefits and at the moment google essentially is realistically unrivalled.

Great article, thanks

By Internet Marketing Indonesia (WPN reader) - Sat, 11/08/2008 - 23:30

thanks for your article.

thanks for your article. Very help me. I will more like visit to webpronews site. :) Fantastic

By العاب (WPN reader) - Tue, 11/04/2008 - 07:43

thanks

By lowongan kerja 2009 (WPN reader) - Sun, 11/02/2008 - 07:11

thanks for its article..

thanks for its article.. very helpful.. :)

By مفضلتى (WPN reader) - Sun, 10/19/2008 - 21:58

thank you another great

thank you another great post

By العاب (WPN reader) - Sun, 10/19/2008 - 21:53

Another great article thank

Another great article

thank you

By شات (WPN reader) - Thu, 10/16/2008 - 17:43

My old man at home doesn't

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. :)

By دردشة (WPN reader) - Fri, 09/26/2008 - 01:06

دردشة

thank u

By دليل مواقع (WPN reader) - Fri, 09/26/2008 - 00:37

دليل مواقع

thank u

By FTA Forums (WPN reader) - Wed, 09/10/2008 - 18:10

Entirely New Category

"Or better, define an entirely new category."

The reality in my opinion is that a new category is what will compete with google. For example, a whole new phenomenon (like FB) that gets huge and then, as an afterthought, implements search into their architecture, basically giving their users convenience: 'you're already on our site for 50% of your computer time, so we integrated search right on to your profile page'

I believe this is the way Google will be beaten. Only time will tell.

By clearpores (WPN reader) - Fri, 08/29/2008 - 02:21

Looks like microsoft came

Looks like microsoft came out with their new browser to "defeat" google.. let's see how that goes

By Mother Pendant (WPN reader) - Fri, 08/22/2008 - 13:19

Personalized Search

As soon as personalized search becomes more common-place, it will be even tougher to beat Google, because the results won't be based at much just on Google as Google and the specific user.

By CjoDesign (WPN reader) - Thu, 08/07/2008 - 15:01

Competitive market

Google has forced many business in a competitive market to pay for high ranking inclusions. www.cindycut.com is one. With that kind of profit how could Google ever stumble from the top.

By Nicky Jameson (WPN reader) - Wed, 08/06/2008 - 03:48

Google and results

I was interested to find this blog as I have had numerous similar problems when using Google. Whilst accepting that they (and realistically nobody else) can get it right 100% of the time, I have often found irrelevant results in the top 10. One time I went on google looking for a book, and I ended up going on to a site about buying bird cages within the first click. I have seen a big change and improvement in recent months though (has google changed its algorithm recently perhaps? I was looking for Tanzanite and the first time I looked 4 months ago the first page was littered with sites that didn't seem to be of much use, but this week Google returned a very useful set of top 10 results and I have subsequently found what I was looking for. Does anyone know if Google has had a huge algorithm change in the recent past?

By Traffic Tickets (WPN reader) - Sun, 08/03/2008 - 16:55

Mahalo and Google Knol

Has anyone checked out Mahalo? Still rediculously small compared to Google, but a cool idea with a little bit of buzz. I agree with the other comments that no matter how big Google seems, change is always inevitable. No one thought Rome would fall but of course nothing lasts forever.

With that being said, I think Googles KNOL project will help keep them where they are for a very long time. Im not sure if they tried to buy Wiki, but this is definitely an offshoot of the idea. Im surprised there isnt a "Google Dictionary" - or is there? ...

By Tanzanite (WPN reader) - Fri, 08/01/2008 - 02:36

Pretty Much Unbeatable at this point

I believe Google is pretty much unbeatable at this point. They are simply too entrenched now.

By run your car on water (WPN reader) - Wed, 07/23/2008 - 02:13

Google

YAY for Google! I think the main reason why Google has become so successful is (among other reasons) the people working there behind the scenes. They seem really creative and.. happy, like they really care about what they're doing, which obviously helps.

By Justin Goldberg (WPN reader) - Tue, 07/22/2008 - 12:17

The whole point of the

The whole point of the simple google interface, in sergey and larry's own words (I can't remember which one said it), is to make it possible to find information quickly, not necessarily to make it easy. Fast access to information. That's why google tossed out IBM db2 for mysql on their adwords generating system.

By دردشة (WPN reader) - Fri, 07/11/2008 - 11:48

Nice

Thanks

By FTA Keys (WPN reader) - Wed, 07/09/2008 - 18:09

Thanks Google?

Not too sure about the thanks to Google comments but I digress.

Although I agree with the fact that his article on beating Google really shows just how impossible it is to beat Google, I agree with the comment that nothing stays the same. There was a time where MySpace was thought to be unbeatable. Then along came the facebook mailbox spam, and pow - Facebook reigns.

To be honest, I have many friends in the business of issuing capital, and the two 'big ones' as far as requests go right now are hardware tech (mostly for phones/blackberries) and for search engine dev. Seems a lot of people are trying to secure capital to implement what they believe may one day beat Google. For the most part, the trend seems to be to take Google's 'local search' to the next level before Google can get their module working properly.

Only time will tell.

By Guest (WPN reader) - Fri, 07/11/2008 - 01:22