I hate it when I get emails or see programs trying to sell something to businesses, especially the Internet Market crowd and they misinterpret the data. There are so many people out there trying to capitalize on the fact that Facebook get as much traffic as they do. Of course Facebook has a tremendous amount of traffic.
Do not delude yourself into thinking that Google will be replaced by Facebook.
Before you begin to take stock in all the hype about how Google is dying or dead and you must position yourself, so you will not see the death of Google… ask yourself a few questions:
How is that traffic counted, that you see in the stats they show?
How many of those people are actually searching for your business or the products and services that you offer?
How many of them are searching for anything other than their friends and family and photos?
The truth is, most of them are not searching for a single thing. People do not go to Facebook to find an eBook or to look for an iPod or to read reviews on the latest droid gadget. The fact is people go there to socialize and communicate with their friends and family. They go to share personal information. Then a certain percentage go to Facebook to play games, while a few people (as in a certain percentage) use it for business. Then there are those that refuse to click on any ads, because it is not a search tool.
Anyone who tells you Google or Bing or the principles behind a Search using a Search Engine is dead, really has no idea how those search engines really work. They have no idea how people who do the searches use them either. Mostly throughout this article, I am going to refer to Google more than other search Engines.
A couple of reasons why are Yahoo has yet to do anything new in the market and if I remember correctly, just before MSN Search became Bing, Yahoo was using the MSN search engine to run it’s own algorithms. Although Bing, may be a player in the search engine game, they too are not the one that many marketers and advertisers talk about most when referring to search. They have been gaining more and more market share, which suggests that they will be a player for a long time to come.
But my personal belief is they get a lot of their traffic via their other paid products. The diehard Microsoft OS crowd and the new users that buy a PC for the first time and use the default settings, which are Internet Explorer and Bing Search. I believe that like Google and Bing will be around for quite a while as search engines.
Then there really are no other dominate search engines to compare.
So let’s look at a few other facts:
- First, we must recognize that social media really is growing and no going anywhere. To that end, these marketers are not mistaken. Today, YouTube (a Google property) is the #4 search engine. Yes, that supports the claim that perhaps social media is taking over and Search Engines may have met their match. YouTube may be a social networking site, but as mentioned, it is also a Google Owned property, it uses Google search algorithms and the reason YouTube is not the #1, #2 or #3 Search Engine is, because it is not designed to only be a search engine. Not everyone searching on the Internet is looking for videos when they go online to find something. In fact, some people do not even watch TV, so why search for more videos online. Plus, there are plenty of people that barely have a handle on how to even use Google search or Bing as it is. How many people do you know, that really know how to properly use any search engine? How many people do you know that even understand how to use Boolean search terms or even what that means?
- Second, Google loves video. Not only YouTube video, but other kinds of video too. This is one way that Google ranks and finds relevant material.
- Third, Google gains a tremendous amount of traffic through the free tools they have available. This will continue to drive the relevance and usefulness of how consumers view Google.
- Fourth, Google loves social media and even has one of it’s own, known as Google Buzz. But the true potential of this tool has yet to be completely known or understood by most users, as it has not yet been completely integrated into all of Googles other properties. There is also Google Friend Connect and integration with YouTube and the open source nature of Google’s API’s, as well as the integration with OpenID. So whatever you do, do not discount Google as a dominant player in the Social Media market just yet.
- Fifth, Google is a debt free company, with a ton of extra money in the bank. How many social media companies can say that? Facebook has yet to become profitable. Twitter is much the same, they are still in the Red. As each of the now existing big social media giants works to catch up financially with Google, Google will continue to build and perfect it’s Google Buzz.
Whenever anyone says that, look deeper into what the results really say and think about how people are using the networks mentioned. Then you will have a much clearer picture, that is not marred by your emotions or even a little bit of naivety, that you might not want to admit you have.
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Rip off. DO NOT BUY if you care about what you pay for this nonsense. 5gb cap on new tech and they didn't think of building something that can handle traffic. This is Engineered Scarcity.