From the smoke and rubble of the failed dot-com-bubble era emerged 3 contenders for the search crown. (4 if you count that interesting blip on the radar - Ask) Each hungrily stockpiled features and tested innovative ideas in hopes of building an arsenal that would grant them superiority.
Like the real life cold-war, smaller web properties began to be enveloped one after another as the search engines grew their empires through alliances, partnerships and corporate buyouts.
Google Steady Front-Runner
Today Google, Yahoo and MSN (and Ask… no seriously) still practice a sort of civil warfare, as they continue to fight for search supremacy. In terms of percentage of use, Google enjoys a healthy lead over the other contenders, and it’s popularity only continues to grow.
Despite big investments and valiant re-branding efforts, neither MSN or Ask have been able to turn the tide in their favor. While all of the search engines have invested a great deal of time, effort, and resources to come out on top, Google is clearly the most popular and frequently used search engine.
So, what has Google done that the others haven’t? Perhaps it’s not what they HAVE done, as much as it is what they HAVE NOT done.
Homepages Key to a Search Engine Success?
While Yahoo & MSN have steadily introduced more and more content into their homepages, Google has adopted a wholly different approach. Despite many acquisitions, niche market expansions and feature innovations of their own, Google’s homepage remains largely unchanged over the years. Could this be the key to their success as the worlds top search engine?
The Google Homepage
The Google homepage is, as it always has been, simple & uncluttered - keeping it lightening quick and super easy to use. New features and additional links are cleverly integrated into the simple user interface, with little or no effect on the speed & usability of the page.
Over the years the process for performing a search on Google has not changed. This consistency allows repeat users to be as comfortable & confident using Google today as they were 5 years ago.
The Yahoo! Homepage
The Yahoo homepage has grown more cluttered over the years as they began to steer away from the directory-centric design and adopted the content portal model. Today the Yahoo homepage lacks the simplicity and ease of the Google homepage.
The MSN Homepage
MSN has always been more or less a content portal with search as an interesting feature. Today the MSN homepage is clumsily overstuffed with advertising and frivolous nick-knacks.
To their credit, in 2006 Microsoft recognized the problem and set about to solve it. Microsoft has perfected the art of copying genius..er I mean “relying on inspiration”, so it was no surprise when they tried to immolate the Google formula.
However, despite their desperate (and costly) efforts to re-brand to their cleaner, faster, more reliable ‘Live’ search engine, MSN (Live) remains well behind Google & Yahoo, and continues losing ground every month.
Conclusion:
A Search Engine’s Homepage is a “Factor” in Success
While a search engines homepage layout is by no means the sole factor (or even perhaps the largest factor) in thier success, I believe it does play a role. A page that is used frequently needs to be quick loading, easy to use, simple to operate, and work consistently over time.
All of these elements are effected by the homepages content &layout. Of the top 3 search engines, Google’s homepage is the cleanest, quickest to load, simplest to operate and has been the most consistent in it’s function over the years.
It’s no wonder Google is a trusted resource when it comes to search.
What’s your opinion?
Of course there are many other factors including relevancy of the results, authority and trust - but is a search engines homepage a key factor in it’s success or failure.
Related Tags:
ask • Google • MSN • search • search engine optimization • search engines • SEM • SEO • web design • Yahoo
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very nice.
I would have to agree with your opinion and analysis. I’ve always been driven away from MSN and Yahoo Search Engines primarily because of their desire to have ’so many irons in the fire’ and not a primary focus in search. Google is growing their offerings each day with wonderful gadgets and applications but still keep their strategy the same. They not only have the bets results but they keep ’search’ fast, easy and simple. Google FTW!
I agree with your analysis, but think the problem is two fold.
1. On the point that you had made about cluttered home pages, I actually don’t mind the gossip on the homepage of MSN or the stocks on Yahoo!’s, but guess what… I am more invested in what is happening with additional content that I don’t search! This is how they make money and are taking me away from it!
2. I tried to use MSN (Live search)and the results were so irrelevant that I stopped using it. I then tried Yahoo! to see if they were any better… not impressed. Google is successful because they deliver what I am looking for, bringing me back for more. I trust their results and made them my default search because I don’t have to comb through the results to find what I am searching for. (Basically I don’t want to have to think about it :P)
If MSN and Yahoo!’s main goal is to have people perform searches to create more impressions for keywords so they can charge advertisers and make more money, then they need to stop frustrating me with irrelevant results and keep me focused on the goal of visiting a search engine in the first place… to perform a search.
“I don’t have to comb through the results to find what I am searching for. (Basically I don’t want to have to think about it :P)”
You’re absolutely right. The results in MSN are riddled with spam, and Yahoo peppers their natural results with nearly undetectable paid inclusions.
Google’s results are simply better - in part because they are fully invested in search. They’re not spread across multiple primary channels - like content production/management, developing buggy operating systems - and their homepage is a great reflection of that singular focus.
[...] launching the all new, bright & shiny Live search engine in 2006, which mimicked Google’s simplified search-centric style, introducing loads of changes & new features to their engine, and more recently paid to have [...]