Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 28th May 2008
Google hits new high in the US
Compared with its almost total domination of
other geographical locations, Google has underachieved in the
US.
This appears to be changing. Figures out this week from US analytics company, Compete.com show Google’s
biggest month-on-month rise for some time. Although it can be difficult to draw conclusions from month-on-month figures, statistics from
Nielson, comScore and HitWise show a similar trend. Their figures show Google has somewhere between a 62% to 68% share of the market up from lows of 55% 12 months earlier.
Jason Calacanis, CEO of the successful US human-based search engine Mahalo believes the trend will continue and their market share will reach
90% share within 12 months due to weakness and infighting at competitors, superior talent and infrastructure investment and its commitment to maintaining a great user experience.
Google also has “thought leadership” in most geographical markets. Google is so associated with “internet search” in people’s minds that “to Google” is used as a verb promoting it by word-of-mouth to non-users and further building market share. This combined with its superior technology and commitment to creating an unparalleled user experience mean Google will only get stronger in all the geographical markets where it is already the leader.
Implications for overseas property
This is both good and bad news for overseas property professionals. The good news is convenience. Being able to target a larger and larger proportion of the world through one advertising platform, Google Adwords is tremendously efficient. If you are new to it or are looking for great advice on how to improve your ROI you should watch this
video.
The bad news is that the cost of convenience is higher prices. Less competition mean fewer positions for your paid search advertisements and contracting supply is inflationary. Expect paid search costs to keep rising, especially for beginners or those unable or unwilling to invest much time in the medium.
Finally, the more powerful Google becomes, the greater both the risks and rewards become for undertaking slightly shadier search engine optimisation practices, like link buying.
Cheating your way to the top will become even more tempting and lucrative. The key with cheating is knowing the risks and more importantly, not getting caught.