Google Will Need To Duplicate Gmail with Gbrowser

With MSN’s search becoming latest threat to Google’s search market stronghold, Google will once again attack its competitor’s strength. Internet Explorer has recently shown some weakness in losing market share to Firefox, and it appears as if Google is ready to attempt to bring down MSN’s greatest strength.

If Google hopes to have any success in bringing down Internet Explorer, they will need to duplicate success of Gmail campaign. When launching Gmail, Google knew that they would make little to no impact on Yahoo! if they were to simply offer an e-mail program that was open to general public. What reason would a person have to join Gmail if they had a perfectly fine email account at Yahoo!? An open launch to general public would result in an initial influx of new users, many of which would be curiosity seekers who would quickly forget about their new, secondary email accounts.

Instead of launching an open campaign to invite general public to participate in Gmail, Google chose to employ a viral marketing campaign of six degrees of separation. No single person had ability to get a Gmail account unless they knew someone who was permitted to extend an invitation. People who had an account, and who in turn were allowed to give away six invitations to others to join Gmail became Gmail’s primary advertisers. A feeling of exclusivity became quickly associated with having a Gmail account, and soon message boards were filled with people offering just six accounts that they were able to give away. The effect is a brilliant example of just how effective Gmail can be. Gmail did not and will not become most popular e-mail program in a short time span, but over time six degrees of separation will make Gmail most popular email system available (if you know someone).

If Google wants to be at all effective in dethroning Internet Explorer, they will have to reach into their bag of tricks once again to make Gbrowser an option that carries same desirability that Gmail carried. Google can certainly count on Microsoft haters to give their browser a spin, but in order to get audience that really matters, vast majority of Internet users, Google will need to extend a personal invitation.

MSN Must Act Quickly

Now that MSN has launched their search results, they will need to act quickly to protect against Google making any serious impact on their browser market. MSN has already done several things right. They are first of major search engines to offer their search results in an RSS format, opening up their results to all webmasters. They also offer Encarta answers to search results, provide music searches, feed discovery, definitions, provide math calculations, news search, and other features that are becoming increasingly important to offer.

However, MSN has not yet launched its own sponsored links program. Although this is certainly a program in making, MSN will need to launch this service as soon as possible if they want to compete with Google and Yahoo! on every level.

But more importantly, Microsoft will need to have a new version of Internet Explorer available to launch once Gbrowser makes its debut. Yahoo! successfully dampened blow of Gmail by matching increased storage space that Google came out with. If Microsoft wants to keep its browser market share safe when Google launches Gbrowser, it will be important that they answer Gbrowser with a competitive product.

It Is All Very Welcome

The search engine wars are all very welcome. The results of search engine wars have been nothing but positive so far. The launch of Gmail provided users with significantly increased storage for email. Yahoo! has improved their search results and Google is continuing to try and improve their search results. If Google launches a new browser it will no doubt offer new options that will only help users organize and find information.

The search engine wars have become much more than a war for attention of Internet searchers. Because Yahoo! and MSN entered search market hoping their strengths would provide them with necessary momentum to topple Google, Google has brought battle to Yahoo! and MSN. The search engine war is now war of vying for Internet user’s attention through search, email, browsers, news aggregation, etc.

No matter how search engine wars turn out, people who will ultimately benefit will be Internet users…and shareholders of winning company.

Mark Daoust is the owner of Site Reference. This is a link to the original article: Look Out MSN Search, Here Comes Gbrowser

That's not an SEO challenge; that's a math problem: searches x marketshare = visitors

I responded with a few factors that override mathematics in SEO game, including site's title tag and description tag, as well as whether term lends itself to scrolling. I also pointed out that it depends on title tags and description tags of competition, too.

Another factor that makes predicting traffic difficult is abandonment factor – how many people click on none of results because they get interrupted or confused, or abandon search for a new one because they find themselves off-topic or searching too broadly.

It also depends on how many sponsored links there are and how they are marked. Often at Yahoo and Lycos, for example, there are so many ads that average searcher might never scroll a screen or two to see organic (natural) results.

And, of course, it also depends on color of walls in room searcher is clicking from, weather outside and how well they slept last night. But there is little you can do about that.

What you can do is to work with your SEO consultant to choose most effective search terms for your business and make sure he develops a title tag and description tag that sell to both humans and search engines. Then make sure he is monitoring not just rankings for your key search terms, but also description used by each of search engines.

A good ranking at Google and Yahoo is just one measure of your SEO consultant's success. A more complete evaluation is that he is your partner in building long-term, targeted traffic