Google dominates the competition!

Google currently dominates UK search engines by up to 75%. Popularity was partly kick started by its clean, uncluttered homepage which won many admirers. However, such extras like Google search bars, and Google Earth are starting to backlash. Many downloadable programs are being released with the option to install such extras, without much detail about them. People who don't generally read the pages when installing something and just continually click "Next" and relying on the computer to do everything, now find such things as Google Search bars on their internet browsers.

There has been no real study into why Google is so successful and if it is really any better than other web searchers, but, majority of people instinctively believe it is.

""With the search marketing spend in the UK netting a healthy £607m in 2006, being an also-ran in the race to beat Google can be profitable and, increasingly, rivals are realising that overtaking Google in the near future will be a mammoth task.

"It's not about overhauling Google but more about narrowing the gap. There is no point trying to be a flat-out copy. It is more a question of offering a different experience with tools that provide users with a better experience," said Mr Elliot. "" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6546501.stm


An example of a competitor which recently ditched it's iconic butler Jeeves earlier this year, Ask, have worked hard to produce a new search engine in which gives users more control. Such as providing users with a minimized size web page before visiting the site as well as offering ways to refine search around related topics.

Methods in which Ask have been trying to get publicised is through T.V. Advertising themselves as an underground alternative.


""""" The movement to persuade users away from the dominant search engines such as Google and Yahoo may be small but it is gathering momentum from those with more solid radical credentials.
At the end of last year, Jimmy Wales, founder of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia offered an alternative "people-powered" search engine.
His plan, still in its infancy, is to Wiki-fy the process of internet search, so that human beings decide openly how to rank and organise information, not the huge private servers of Google and Yahoo.
He labelled the project "Search Wikia" and has high ambitions for it to be "the search engine that changes everything". The plan follows criticism of the secrecy surrounding the algorithms of the leading search engines. "" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6546501.stm


All information and details have been taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6546501.stm.