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Mehra, co-founder of ProfitWheel, an ad analytics platform, isn’t surprised. Until a year ago, Google was the preferred site for 100% of his searches. “Now, it’s about 40%,” he says. For the rest, it goes to platforms like Amazon for product searches, Reddit for unique issues, food and grocery apps, and ChatGPT.
After reigning as the undisputed king of Internet search for two decades, Google’s dominance has waned in the last three to four years. Specialized platforms like Amazon for product search, Spotify/Apple Music for music, Roblox for games, Booking.com for travel, and social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit are gaining ground.
According to a March 2023 report by PowerReviews, a ratings improvement consultancy, 50% of US consumers, mostly millennials, start product searches on Amazon rather than Google. Also, 5% of Gen Z users in the US are likely to start their shopping journey on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Over the past seven years, search’s contribution to Google’s overall advertising revenue has fluctuated. It fell from 73.97% in 2017 to 70.8% in 2020. There was a slight increase to 73.6% in 2023, but it was still below the level of 2017. In April 2023, a WARC report predicted that Google’s share of the global advertising market of research would fall from 51% in 2021 to 50.4% in 2023.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
Basically, these days you only turn to Google when you’re not sure where to look for something. For everything else, you turn to specialized platforms, which Himanshu Khanna calls “shared mental platforms.” Khanna is the founder of Openvy.com, an online community platform. He notes that Google admits to losing a share of the search market to platforms that dominate user attention for specific activities.
“Users visit IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes for movie reviews and ratings. Consequently, Google now prioritizes displaying these results prominently at the top of its search pages,” he says. Last week, some X users shared that Google is now displaying Instagram posts within its Perspectives feature in its search results. Research.
However, these “mind sharing platforms” are trying to surpass Google’s search capabilities. Today, when it comes to finding out where to watch something, Google is often the top choice. Khanna says IMDb is starting to show this information. “It now provides details of where a show or a movie is available in your country,” he says. Mehra, who has followed the history of Google search since its inception, recalls the changes that have taken place over the decades.
Archie was the first internet search engine. Created by Alan Emtage in 1990, it would index information in the form of large files on the web. By 1994, Yahoo!, WebCrawler, and Lycos expanded the search landscape. Google was officially launched in 1998. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin introduced the PageRank algorithm to Google’s web search. It ranked websites based on multiple factors and displayed search results accordingly. “It revolutionized modern-day Internet search,” says Mehra, recalling his days surfing the Web with a dial-up connection while hoping no one picked up the landline and interrupted his web browsing. In 2007, Google introduced Unified Search.
“From 10 blue links, you started seeing images, news and videos as part of the search results.” Two years later, Microsoft launched rival Bing, but it remained a minor player.
The early 2010s saw an increase in mobile and voice-based queries. Voice assistants like Siri and Alexa emerged as did image-guided search. As of 2020, search has evolved towards personalized, AI-driven experiences.
Soon, search engines will be replaced by search assistants, says Aditya Agrawal, founder of superU, an ad network for the AI world. He cites a Gartner report that predicts “traditional search engine volume will decline 25% by 2026, with search marketing losing market share to AI chatbots and other virtual agents.”
This change is underway. Last week, Amazon Beauty launched a personalized recommendation tool called SkinCare Advisor. Agrawal is developing search assistants that scour the web for data, particularly in sectors like healthcare.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR GOOGLE?
Mehra says that while Google’s search influence may have waned, it still collects a wealth of user behavior data from Gmail and receipts from e-commerce transactions and travel itineraries. “YouTube, Android and Chrome are all data beacons for ‘identified’ data,” he adds. Further, Google’s Pixel has introduced AI-powered features like Circle to Search what’s on your screen without switching apps. “I’m not selling my Google shares anytime soon,” says Mehra, who recently launched consumr.ai, an AI-led consumer intelligence platform.
In an email, a Google spokesperson tells ET: “Over the past 25 years, we’ve continued to reimagine and expand what Google Search can do. Years ago, it might have seemed like science fiction to pull out a phone, snap a picture of a broken bike part, and ask, ‘How do I fix this?’ Today, you can use Google Lens, find out what’s broken, where to get a replacement part, and how to repair it yourself, all in seconds.” The spokesperson also cites Multisearch (where people can search naturally using pictures and text for things that are hard to describe) and Search Circle as examples of the company’s advances in search in recent years.
Significantly, Google’s rival search interfaces have failed. Vikrama Dhiman, SVP of product at an on-demand tech conglomerate, says the infinite scrolling feature on platforms like Instagram and TikTok negatively impacts search functionality. “These platforms excel at keeping you moving with strong recommendations, but their limitations become clear when you ask a direct question,” he says. For example, while Instagram offers a variety of recommended audio options for Stories and posts, searching for a specific country or piece of music in the app is still a hassle, Dhiman says.
IMPACT ON PEOPLE
How has the evolution of online search affected end consumers? “People expect platforms to know the context of their search now. They want the search process to reduce the cognitive load of decision-making in as many aspects of their lives as possible,” says superU’s Agrawal.
So platforms are now trying to eliminate our need to search. Food and grocery delivery apps highlight your most visited restaurants, favorite dishes and previously purchased food items at the top of the home page.
“This is done to reduce decision-making time in these applications,” says Riti Malhotra, director of product at a hyperlocal transportation firm. She recalls an inside joke from her tenure at a food delivery startup: it takes longer to decide what to order than it does to deliver it. However, personalized search results have some limitations. “Even if an item is purchased infrequently or ranks low, if you purchased it last, it will appear at the top for you, marked as previously purchased, until the model learns that this is no longer what the user wants .”
At some level, these recommendation engines teach you to let a machine make decisions for you. Agrawal admits that he now decides what food to order only 5-10% of the time. The rest of the time, he relies on his app’s recommendations. What are we doing with all the time saved by not making these few decisions?
“Maybe we look at ‘Instagram Reels,'” he said. There are concerns about social media-driven search. “Food or snack recommendations are based on what the algorithm knows about you, so it doesn’t force changes in your choices,” says Gayatri Sapru , anthropologist and founder of the brand consultancy Folk Frequency. But platforms like Instagram that don’t have search capabilities built into them are being used intuitively, she adds. “It doesn’t always have what you need, so it tells you about the thing the closest it offers, redirecting your attention and limiting your view of the world.”
Sapru cites American sociologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle to bolster her argument. “Turkle wrote how being on a multi-window screen itself requires you to absorb different information and parts of yourself so that the sources are different and you can see that your identity is a tapestry of ideas from different perspectives. many. This critical skill is lost when you live, like, move inside applications that create a world of their own,” says Sapru. “It’s hindering basic research skills in younger generations.”
On a broader level, AI’s tendency to prioritize quantifiable results can obscure more esoteric or indigenous ideas, warns Sapru. “Over time, AI could create a world where the latest ideas disappear entirely from search results, which is alarming.”
Now, more than ever, end consumers need to provide feedback on these applications for improvement, says Roopa Rao, a product management professional with search deployment experience dating back to the days of Boolean search, which involved using phrases like “And”, “Or”. “” and “No” to refine the search results. “Tools like ChatGPT constantly ask if their answers are helpful.
Without feedback, AI assumes this is what you want,” she explains. Mehra, too, believes that as platforms continue to evolve their search capabilities, individuals should also reflect on how their search habits have changed over time and how they feel about those changes. “The less I ask,” he says to himself, “the less I think.”
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