Google's Dominance and Microsoft's Perseverance

Year after year, and month after month we keep an eye on the search engine market share picture. Over and over again in the US, we see Google completely dominating (more so with each year it seems), Yahoo a ways back, and Microsoft even further back.

These three search engines have long been known as "the big three," although in reality, there's really only a "big one." Looking at blogs at the Wall Street Journal about Microsoft's hurdles in the search market as the company struggles with branding issues. Microsoft's search brand is as Wingfield points out, a "confusing jumble." Right now, they've got Live Search at msnsearch.com redirects to live.com. Now they're throwing names like Kumo and Kiev into the mix. That ought to help. Meanwhile, Google is still Google and Yahoo is still Yahoo. Perhaps they're overlooking their strongest brand - oh, I don't know..."Microsoft?"

What if they branded people can't tell the difference. If this is the case, branding rather than relevancy is the real issue. And it's something Microsoft is looking to improve, but will they succeed in this or just come up with the next "live.com" which isn't really that old of a brand itself?

Does it even matter at this point anyway? Based on this "taste test" business, it sounds like people find Microsoft results as good as Google's. Not better. Why would Google users change just to get more of the same from a place they're not used to going? Add the fact that many Google users have their time invested in many other Google products on the web (like Gmail, Calendar, Docs, AdWords, their iGoogle home pages, etc.). Google search is always close by to these people too.

The Other Two

Meanwhile, Yahoo is doing its own thing, going more open, and more social, etc. Matt McGee has an
As for Google, it keeps doing its thing, and people keep using it. It continually makes changes to its algorithm, and despite complaints here and there (mostly from marketers), they're keeping the butts in the seats, so to speak. Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz has infuriated by the recent Facebook redesign stopped using Facebook in favor of a different network. What's Facebook's number up to now,