The war of search engines according to the analysis company Netmarketshare. Microsoft and Yahoo have a global share of 10.81% and 3.52% respectively, with Google at 54%!
It is the «entry gates» on the Internet for millions of users worldwide, and also one of the main economic activities for the internet giants that have developed or manage them. The reason for search engines, which one resorts to in order to find specific information within the vast amount of data of the world wide web, simply by typing the appropriate «keywords». Words that, on the other hand, the administrators of the «search engine» auction off to any businesses that want to advertise related products, so that their listings appear next to the search results.
These advertising campaigns «translated» into billions of profit for the three companies whose services have the highest usage rates worldwide – Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, with the latter using for ’ this purpose the «search engine» Bing of Microsoft. Thus, given that for example Yahoo had this year revenues 428 million dollars only within a quarter, specifically from April to June, it is natural the «war» of search engines to continue unabated, aiming for even larger market shares.
In this «war», one of the weapons is the upgrades of the «search engines», with the addition of features that make them increasingly user‑friendly. Thus, Google modernized the search application it has developed for iPhone and iPad, facilitating access to the search history and embedding maps in it, so that one can find directions to one's destination without having to «open» the application that corresponds to this service. At the same time, it accelerated the appearance of the desired website for those who search from the Chrome browser on Android mobile devices, minimizing the time needed for it to be displayed from the moment the user selects it.
On the other hand, Microsoft has made changes to the web version of Bing so that a range of information is more easily accessible to users. Such information includes phone numbers, store opening hours, and navigation directions, which appear as cards at the top of the results list to be immediately visible. Reminiscent of the similar cards used by Google, this display method is used both in desktop and mobile searches. Additionally, Microsoft has integrated into Bing the «Pulse 2.0»», an advanced internet polling tool that can be used by any individual or company (e.g., a TV station) wishing to conduct an online pulse survey on a topic.
Indeed, and only if one takes PCs into account, Microsoft and Yahοo have a global share of 10.81% and 3.52% respectively, according to the analytics firm Netmarketshare. This means they have a long way to go to reach 54%, which corresponds to Google's «search engine». That's why’ Microsoft's strategy also includes using its other popular products to promote the search engine. This started with the release of a cheaper variant of Windows for PC and tablet manufacturers, the «Windows 8.1 with Bing», on the condition that the machines would be sold with the «search engine» preselected in Internet Explorer.
Much more recently, specifically in December, it began to leverage Word for the same purpose, initially adding a small search pane in its online version, where Bing provides information for the searches the user types. According to the company, this allows one to find the needed information without having to leave the document.
On the other hand, Yahoo chose to leverage the fact that, as several studies have shown, people rarely change the search engine in the browser they use, keeping the one selected by the developers who built the browser. Thus, it entered into a commercial agreement with the Mozilla Foundation, so that for the next five years its own “search engine” will be the default in the foundation's Firefox browser, and not Google's search engine, as was the case until now.
War in Russia-China
Beyond Yahoo, the Mozilla foundation also agreed with the companies behind the Yandex and Baidu search engines, so that the two «searches» are set as default in the Russian and Chinese versions of Firefox, respectively.
The two specific engines have relatively negligible global presence, yet they are extremely popular at the local level. Thus, Yandex's market share in Russia is 82%, while in Belarus and Ukraine it is 52% and 45% respectively. On the other hand, Baidu currently focuses almost exclusively on the Chinese language, where it has a share of 81.7% among a user population that reaches 513 million.
Indeed, the planetary «influence map» of each search engine can change in the coming years, as the «Chinese Google» which has already been «baptized» Baidu by Western media, has already shown that its intention is to expand beyond China.
Proof of the fact that during the summer it acquired a branch in Brazil, which launched the «Busca», a search engine in the local language.
Also, according to statements in the New Scientist magazine by Min Jiang, a professor at the University of North Carolina, her plans are to give the «present» soon also in Indonesia and in North Africa.
The parallelism with Google stems from the fact that the Chinese company also invests in technologies that mimic the function of the human brain and will make its machine even more «smart», so that, for example, it can «understand» natural language and the objects that appear in any kind of image. In fact, for this purpose, it recently hired the professor from Stanford University Andrew Ng, who had started the corresponding Google Brain project on behalf of the American giant.
Source: kathimerini.gr
