Gunning for Google

Posted on July 28, 2008
Filed Under Business, David Waldman, Gogimon, Google, Internet, Israel, Search, cuil, delver, high tech, search engines, software, startup, technology | 1 Comment

New search startups are being launched all the time. You would think Google is in trouble, right? Well, lose no sleep over Google’s future!

Here are some of the newest wannabes challenging Google’s reign in the search market.

Israel’s Gogimon Search Channel, designed as a private label system for large retail websites, features as its opening page the adopting website. It gives its customers and users a vast array of focus oriented search tools, making potential searches considerably more efficient. It attempts to improve on Google’s sometimes inability to get the user the real results he or she is looking for. It’s a nice idea but still has a long way before it gets Google to even notice it.

Yet another very publicized search startup, www.cuil.com is trying to create some new rules on how search results are achieved. Google’s method, up till now, consisted of ranking the quantity and quality of links to Web sites. Cuil’s engineers will be using technology that drills into the actual content of a page. In addition Cuil’s results will be presented in a more magazine-like format instead of just a vertical stack of Web links. Photos will be spread horizontally across the page and include sidebars that can be clicked on. Cuil is counting on its indexing many pages that Google ignores, they claim to index almost 3 times as much as Google. It was designed by a team of ex-Google engineers. Even so… Google has no cause to worry just yet.

Another wannabe is www.delver.com which offers social search results that it gleans from the multitude of social sites out there. Information already public knowledge on the web is searched and made available thru keywords and key phrases. Delver wants to corner the market on Social search which never becomes a part of SERPS under normal conditions. It’s a novel idea but I can see Google yawning right now.

Even if all these companies got together and combined their efforts into one powerful search tool, the war against Google is already lost. Google has already been branded as search and even superior methods can not change this for the foreseeable future. Yahoo and MSN Live have unequivocally proven this point.

Google’s standard response to its would be challengers is that all the innovations only spur everyone on to work harder at improving their particular product, with the individual searcher being the eventual winner.

Can you blame any company for trying for the spoils?

David Waldman

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