A WebmasterWorld thread is discussion a recent BusinessInsider piece that says:
Google's share gains have flatlined.A year ago, Google had 65% of the US search market. Last month, Google had 64.4% of the US search market. This after an amazing decade in which Google gained about a point of share per month.
Most Google bulls expected Google to eventually own considerably more than 65% share of the US search market. As Google's competitors collapsed, it seemed Google would eventually be able to gain the 80%-90% share that Google has in many other countries worldwide. Based on Google's flatlining in the past year, however, this incremental 15-25 point market share gain now seems like wishful thinking.
Honestly, I love Danny's When Losers Are Winners: How Google Can “Lose” Search Share & Yet Still Stomp Yahoo. Danny says at the end:
Today's news also highlight a long-standing issue that the industry has yet to address. Search share and search volume figures don't tell the entire story. Both can be "inflated." Or deflated, in a world where "blended" search might integrate information that previously required two searches to retrieve.
The thread gets into the topic of, can Google grow forever? BillyS said:
I've been hearing about the downfall of Google for at least five years now. They dominated search back then, they still dominate. All efforts to close the gap have failed up until now. There is no logical reason to expect that to change. I don't see a major threat on the horizon. In fact, I could argue that based on history Facebook's days are limited.
Another person said:
Agree. They can't go up forever. IE hit a peak and is now settling back into a lower market range which it has held for years. I expect G to stay in the 60% share range for many years to come.
It is a debatable topic, which is why we have forums.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
