Google wins another title; overtakes Yahoo

by Paul O'Brien / Thursday, 15 May 2008 / Published in Advertising, Search

I’d bet you didn’t realize that for all the hype Google receives for having the greatest search share, Yahoo! still reigns supreme as the most used (trafficked) website. According to comScore latest numbers, Yahoo serves 33.6 billion page views per month easily eclipsing Google’s 28.7 billion. Traditional marketers (or, frankly, savvy marketers who recognize that ads are worth more than a click through and immediate sale) will still find Yahoo the ideal partner with whom to run massive ad campaigns reaching contextually targeted consumers.

But what of my headline? Google has not only claimed the web search crown but is now, arguably, the most popular internet site. In the same report, comScore cites Google’s unique U.S. audiences as topping 141 million users, beating Yahoo’s audience by almost 500k. Microsoft remains comfortably third as is usually the case against these two internet behemoths.

Personally, page views mean more. Google may now have the more recognizable brand and certainly, their ad model crushes all others when it comes to direct performance based marketing but for engagement, time spent, and other valuable metrics that online marketers too often overlook, Google has some work to do.

Related Questions

How is IaaS different from SaaS?

SaaS (Software as a Service) is a finished product sold directly to users; you log in and use it. Infrastructure as a Service is a capability sold to builders; you embed it into a product so your customers can use it without knowing it's there. The distinction isn't about which company you're buying from; it's about which layer of the stack you're buying. AWS S3 is infrastructure: raw capability you build on top of. Google Sheets is SaaS: a finished product you use directly. One sells to builders. The other sells to users.

How does IaaS apply to startup development organizations (SDOs) specifically?

Incubators and accelerators have a serious, operationally complex job: give founders access to global mentor networks, connect them to investors, manage deal rooms, deliver curriculum, and track relationships over time. Most do it with a stitched-together combination of video tools, Slack groups, shared Google Drive folders, and spreadsheets of mentor contacts nobody updates. The program director becomes a part-time IT administrator. What an SDO actually needs is civic infrastructure; purpose-built and comprehensive enough to deliver on what it promises founders. Ironically, an incubator's job is to teach founders to stop building things they don't need to build, and then those same incubators do exactly that with their own operations

What does "traction" actually mean to investors?

It's shorthand for evidence that the market wants what you're building (not necessarily revenue!). Investors say "traction" to mean: prove the hypothesis. Understanding why they ask for it is more valuable than chasing a specific metric to satisfy the ask.

What actually gets startups funded if it's not the product or idea?

A credible market thesis, a defensible go-to-market, and a team with disproportionate ability to execute in a specific space. The product is evidence of those, not the fundable thing itself. Ideas aren't fundable. Validated market insight with a capable team pursuing it is.

Should governments fund IaaS for startup ecosystems the same way they fund roads?

That's the argument Paul makes directly. A city's economic development office asking whether founders can find the right mentors, connect with the right investors, and access the right deal flow infrastructure is asking whether the city has invested in ecosystem infrastructure, not whether it has hosted pitch competitions. Governments underwriting purpose-built ecosystem infrastructure would produce better outcomes than funding another cohort of another accelerator running on ad hoc tools.

Tagged under: brand, Google, market share, page views, popularity, search share, share, size, volume, Yahoo!

2 Comments to “Google wins another title; overtakes Yahoo”

Commerical Carpet Cleaning Guide says :

May 16, 2008 at 5:36 am

I read this article in the newspaper today. I find it funny that they mentioned Yahoo recieves more pageviews. I don’t think that’s an accurate indicator of the sites popularity, considering that surfers could be surfing though more than one SERP page as a result of a lack of relevancy in the search results.
Paul O'Brien says :

May 16, 2008 at 5:38 pm

Thanks Commercial Carpet Cleaning Guy
I don’t disagree with you in the least and I don’t think the articled does either, did it? They are stating that Google is now more popular. That said, Yahoo has greater engagement and time spent, as indicated by the page views consumed. Frankly, while your perspective on search quality is accurate, so too is the bottom line that while Yahoo is constantly pitted against Google as a Search Engine, Yahoo’s pvs come from Finance, Sports, Hotjobs, Personals, Answers, etc. Much more content that they create as a portal, making them a more attractive partner for brand advertising.