Happy Brithday Google
27/09/2012
Google is 14 years old and how time flies!
Today in the UK we are used to Google being number one in search and dominantly number one with second and third placed competitors a long way behind.
But it was not always like this. Ten years ago when Cornish WebServices started providing Internet Marketing services , Google was just one player in the search market. Google belonged to the ‘top three’ players of MSN, Yahoo and Google, but there were many significant players including AOL and Altavista and very large numbers of minor players.
The early Google was different in many other ways – for example the company only went public in 2004.
Today Google AdWords is the dominant force in PPC advertising but again this was not always the case. In fact ‘AdWords’ was playing catchup in the early 2000’s with Overture who was first mover in the PPC market and had the dominant market share. Back as early as 2002-2003 any business wishing to advertise online would first of all invest with Overture and if this was successful look to AdWords for extra exposure. This changed when Google search became the preferred search engine and AdWords PPC had greater market share.
So much for the world of websites and business – but what about real life and the world as we drive or walk around? Today many see the world via Google Earth and navigate via Google maps. Neither are new.. Google maps was launched almost exactly half way through Google’s ‘life’ – namely 7 years ago in 2005.
So its worth remembering there was life before Google and once upon a time Google was not dominant in the area of search marketing.
