14 DAY TRIAL // Google’s search business is thriving, but it doesn’t always pay off. While there are many search engines out there, including Bing and Yahoo, Google says that its biggest competitor is Amazon.
In an extremely lengthy blog post on the European site, Eric Schmidt, current chairman of the company and former CEO, argues that Google is not a monopoly in Europe. Instead, it’s a good corporate citizen, despite all the accusations that have been brought over the years and the antitrust investigation it is now a subject of.
“History has proven that size and past success are no guarantee for the future. Great companies can be surpassed swiftly. Look at Yahoo, Nokia, Microsoft, Blackberry and others who seemed unrivaled just a few years ago, but were disrupted by a new wave of tech companies, Google among them. Many of you are skeptical. I get that. You look at Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon and say there’s no way competitors can beat them. I’m less certain,” Schmidt said.
He continues saying that these companies are each others’ biggest competitors, indicating that many people think Google’s main competition is Bing or Yahoo, while in truth Amazon is the biggest search competitor.
“People don’t think of Amazon as search, but if you are looking for something to buy, you are more often than not looking for it on Amazon. They are obviously more focused on the commerce side of the equation, but, at their roots, they are answering users’ questions and searches, just as we are,” the chairman writes.
In order to further push the “good guy” image for Google in Europe, the chairman stated that the company employs over 1,100 people across five offices in Germany and last year, it has invested over €200 million there. Overall, there are 9,000 people working for Google in Europe, with a €4 billion investment in four years.
Fast answer tools are a response to users' needs
He also defends the search engine tools Google now has, such as the maps that you can find almost every time you search for things. “Google ‘Berlin weather’ and you’ll no longer get ten blue links that you need to dig through. Instead, you’ll get the weather forecast for the next few days in the top results, saving you time and effort,” Schmidt points out.
The chairman added that Google’s search innovation is a response to the frustration of some users. For instance, for many years, Google wasn’t very good at answering queries like “flight from Berlin to London,” displaying a million links to other sites, where users then had to enter to look for more info. “We noticed lots of repeat searches, a sure sign of user frustration. People wanted direct answers, with fewer clicks,” he says, explaining why they created Flight Search.
Search is for users, not companies
As for the antitrust case that’s going on in Europe, Schmidt says that the issue of providing direct answers to questions is the main problem companies like Yelp and TripAdvisor are complaining about because it deprives their websites of valuable traffic. And there lies the issue. Google created search for users, not websites.
“They’d rather go back to 10 blue links. What’s interesting is that the traffic these websites get from Google has increased significantly – faster in fact than our own traffic – since we started showing direct answers to questions.”