January 31, 2005 11:37 AM
Search Sites Play a Game of Constant Catch-Up
Excerpt: Perhaps the fiercest competition on the Internet these days is among sites offering new ways to search through more information.
Last Monday, Google representatives called analysts and reporters to trumpet a new service that searches the transcripts of television broadcasts. Yahoo, Google's rival, got wind of the announcement and within hours, its publicity machine had bolted into action to say it had a similar service in the works.
Perhaps the fiercest competition on the Internet these days is among sites offering new ways to search through more information. Yahoo and Microsoft each have hundreds of engineers trying to challenge Google's leadership, and dozens of minor players are trying to find ways of getting their services noticed. A9, Amazon.com's search service, recently sent vans with digital cameras onto the streets of some cities to take pictures of businesses. The photos were later displayed alongside telephone numbers in A9's phone directory.
So far, all this innovation has yet to shake Google from its perch at the top of the search market, although its growth in market share has slowed. Google, which reports its earnings for the fourth quarter today and is expected to double its revenue from a year ago, has continued to increase its share of searches conducted over the last year, according to research by ComScore Networks. In November, 47 percent of searches in the world were on sites owned by Google, up from 44 percent a year earlier. Yahoo's sites rose to 27 percent, from 25 percent a year ago.
But underneath those numbers, Yahoo is making significant gains, particularly in the United States, with new features that it has yet to introduce to international users. And at a time when Google has stalled in getting some new products to the market, Yahoo has been methodically working on a master list of projects: first, core Internet search, then shopping search, local search and next travel search, according to Danny Sullivan, the editor of Search Engine Watch, an Internet news site. He said Google had been more erratic.
"Yahoo says, 'Where is the mountain? Let's climb it,' " Mr. Sullivan said. "Google says, 'Maybe we want to go up the mountain and maybe we want to go surfing.' "
In the United States, Yahoo is gaining on Google. Yahoo's share rose to 35 percent of searches in November from 29 percent a year earlier, according to ComScore. During the same period, Google rose to 38 percent from 37 percent. And Yahoo is receiving acclaim for some of its innovations, like local search that allows users to see a map that pinpoints the location of the area or business they are searching for.
"Each one of our new products can bring in new users who rediscover the core product we offer," said Jeff Weiner, Yahoo's senior vice president for search.
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