Good morning, internet fans! Ryan Perry, Simple Biz Support. Today is Thursday, February 25th, therefore it is ‘Internet Marketing Thursday‘. As usual, I have Virginie Dorn with Business Website Center down in Petaluma. Good morning, Virginie.

Virginie Dorn: Good morning and happy Thursday from Petaluma. How are you doing?

RP: Happy Thursday indeed. It’s a sunny day. I’m going to actually take advantage of this great weather and go snow-skiing tomorrow. Hopefully, the snow isn’t too soft. We’ll see what happens.

VD: Life is hard for us in California.

RP: Sometimes it is. But you know, I had to do a search yesterday in order to find out what the weather is going to be like, and all those type of things. And being an SEO guy, an Internet Marketing guy, of course I use Google, and we’re going to talk about the fact that there are other search engines out there besides Google. And we’re going to talk about some numbers because even though everybody knows Google’s the default search engine, that doesn’t mean you want to ignore some of the other ones that are out there.

VD: Correct. And we’ll focus on the five most popular search engine in the world, and we’ll list them in order of importance. And after this session today, you’ll understand why we talk about Google all the time, ’cause after all they’re still the powerhouse, they still hold 65% of all internet searches in the world, so they’re not to be taken lightly.

RP: Yeah. And but the key thing is, is that with 65%, that means there is 35% out there. And I think for people that are looking for national search results, or even international search results, ignoring the other search engines could be detrimental because we’re going to get in to the numbers of how many searches are done every day, every month, and it’s a staggering number.

VD: Yes. People who love numbers, are going to love today’s webinar. That’s for sure. What I’d like to do is actually use screen-share, so let me do that.

RP: Right. And since we are doing this in numerical order, number one at top, we already know Google’s up there. And oh, we’re going in to that screen-share first.

VD: Yeah, we’ll start there just to give people a rough estimate of what’s going on. If you actually go to Internet Live Stats, it’s really captivating. It shows you for a day, how many users are there, how many websites are built, and this is today’s stats. There’s almost one billion websites currently. They even tell you how many users, on average, there’s 3.5 billion internet searches every single day, 3.5 billions. Not millions, billions. And Google alone, like currently to… Just alone for today, like from the time midnight came around to right now, it’s almost 1.875 million searches which is crazy… Oh, billion, sorry. The number is so big. But let’s talk about the search engines. So the most popular one to date is still Google. Again, I’ve called it a powerhouse, it represents 65% of all web searches. It was started not that long ago, back in 1997, so it’s not that old of a search engine. And it’s an incredible market share.

VD: And I’m going to show you, you are familiar with Google’s homepage, it doesn’t get simpler than that. It is very streamlined, it’s simple to use, they don’t even have the magnifying icon which it’s so clean and modern. And maybe this is the reason behind their success beside the fact also that they do render the best quality search results when looking for something. You personally, how do you feel about the Google cleanliness in comparison to Bing, Yahoo, Ask, AOL, all being the first top five search engines? And then you go back to Google, the leader in the industry.

RP: Yeah. And you know what I love, is the fact that you don’t even have to go to Google anymore in most of the web browsers. I use Chrome and I just type in the URL, it alleviates one step in the overall process. I can just type something in in the URL bar and it automatically pulls up a Google search.

VD: Yes. But interestingly, it’s most computers out there are PCs and they come with Bing as their default search engine, or a Microsoft Edge or whatever browsers, and then it has Bing as the search engine. But a lot of people will switch in that small box you were referring to, they’ll switch it back to Google because they do prefer Google. So they overwrite the computer manufacturer’s default. Still, they still do which I think is kind of insane, and it shows the support of Google users have for the company. Now, I mentioned earlier that they are champion in search or results quality. Indeed, they tweak the search algorithm quite frequently which drives you like crazy because we constantly have to adapt to the new algorithm, but they do it to keep up with the trends, to keep up with the internet user’s preferences, what are people now expecting, and wanting to see? Out of all the top search engines, they are the one that really pay attention and have a pulse on what internet user’s want, and they render results accordingly, and this is why they’re still very popular.

RP: Yeah, definitely. Let’s go to Bing and check that now ’cause they are the number two search provider, correct?

VD: Correct, and Bing started a little bit later. It is a replacement search engine for Microsoft it used to be Live Search you might remember. Also, prior to Live Search we had MSN Search, Windows Live Search, if you have not heard of them you are not the only one, they were not very popular. So Bing is the newest search engine started in 2009, and it does represent 21% of all web searches in the world. So it’s not to be taken lightly. So if you look at Google and Bing, between the two of them most searches go through their search engine, and then below that you have a bunch of different search engines that are going after 1%, 5%, really small percentage of the market share. This, you’re looking at Bing here, a little more visual, still very simple, but did keep the Google way of doing things where you can look at “who is Ryan Perry”, and then it will tell you. But nonetheless it’s a little bit busier. It does come as a default with all the new computers, and sent a powerhouse on their own.

RP: Do you know the key thing with Bing is the fact that it’s 20, what is it? 21% of all searches are done through Bing.

VD: Yes.

RP: And you know, part of that, I think, is strictly because of the fact that Microsoft, like you said, automatically the default search engine on a PC and therefore your average home user is probably going to be those Bing users from a lot of it, simply because they didn’t make the switch. People who are a little more tech savvy are going to be, “Okay I’m going to go ahead and make that switch and convert over to Google so you may find different results on your website if you look at your Google Analytics as far as engagement from a Bing follower versus a Google follower possibly.

VD: Correct, I think they benefit to the fact that Microsoft is their company and is a manufacturer of most computers around the world, so without this they would not be able to hold that much of a market share. Saying that Bing is a far greater quality search engine than they’ve had compared to anything they’ve tried in the past. It’s more in line with Google. It is still not Google, it still doesn’t have the same quality results that Google offers but nonetheless it’s getting a little closer and Microsoft has done a better job with that search engine, and I think Bing is going to start gaining a little bit more momentum but nonetheless Google is going to remain number one for many years to go and I don’t see how they will ever go away when you hold 65% of the market share. It’s almost like a monopoly at this point when…

RP: Yeah, I think they would have to really mess things up in order to have that market share eroded. And the one thing that’s interesting, I believe it was when Bing debuted, or it might have been shortly after, they were actually paying people to use their search engine. The more you searched, you got credit somehow, I never signed up, but I know they’re still giving away money if you use Bing for search.

VD: They do actually, I just got a $5 Target card! They do accumulate points for using Bing, I think it’s brilliant! It’s one of the marketing campaigns they’ve launched and it’s not that long ago they launched and pushed it, and it’s brilliant I think. You’re paying people and you can redeem those dollar amounts at Target, Starbucks, you’re talking the big retail shops out there. But it’s kinda sad that they do have to pay and reward their users in order to keep them. But again they have to do that. But again, Bing has Microsoft behind the scenes so they have a lot of money, a lot of the marketing experience and I can see them gaining a little bit more market share. Now we can…

RP: The other thing I just thought of, it just reminded me, there was an article, I want to say maybe two weeks ago that Google reportedly paid Apple like a billion dollars to be their default search engine. So as we move into more and more users actually there’s more users on mobile these days than there are desktops. That mobile search becomes very important with all the android devices, of course they’re using Google and then with Apple at least right now, because there’s an agreement between Apple and Google, Google is the default search engine with Apple these days too with the iPhone.

VD: Oh, wow I didn’t know about that. That’s huge. So again, Google is here to stay whether you like it or not. So it’s important to pay attention to what Google wants to see in your website when you’re ready to optimize it. Now if we go to the third most popular search engine in the world it is Yahoo. Yes it’s still around at 12 1/2% of all web searches. It started back in 1994 so it’s a little older as a search engine, and primarily it has its popularity by the fact that their email program, Yahoo.com, is the most popular email program out there. So a lot of people, a lot of traffic going through Yahoo is because people are actually checking their Yahoo email inbox and then they are there and been doing the search, so it does help them but little by little people are switching email programs and Yahoo is going to lose popularity unless they come up with something else. But again, their email program is what makes them the third search engine in the world.

VD: As we move along, we can talk to number four and five and you can… You’re going to see drastically what changes. This is Ask.com, you may have not heard about it that’s because only 3% of searches are done from Ask.com. It’s come a long way, it’s a question and answer based website where you can ask things like “What is Ryan Perry’s middle name?” Or “How did the universe start? How old is Tom Hanks?” Crazy kind of questions that’ll give you answers. The problem is, it’s sometimes inaccurate or too vague and most web users don’t know about Ask, they only hold 3%. So, if you can focus on Google, Bing, and Yahoo, you’re in very good shape because they hold most of the web searches in the world. And as we’re wrapping up today, the fifth one is still AOL. Yes, it still exists. Someone just asked me that question recently. “Does AOL still exist?” It does, and it holds 1% and it is the fifth most popular search engine but it still only holds 1% of all searches. It is the oldest way back in 1983 when I was 12 years old, yet now you know my age.

RP: You’ve got mail.

VD: Yes. I remember that. Well, at least you and I do. Maybe I…

RP: Back in the dial, I paid by the minute with AOL. You got the disc in the mail, stuck it in the computer, loaded this program which probably took a half hour ’cause… Gosh, I don’t even know how fast the machines were running four megs of RAM. It was pretty crazy back in the day and then of course dial-up. When I got my first 56K modem I was like “Yeah, I’m going to be cruising now. 56K and none of that 28.8 anymore. Uh-uh.”

VD: That was America Online back then, remember?

RP: Yeah.

VD: It wasn’t AOL, it was America Online.

RP: Yep, crazy stuff.

VD: Yeah, things have changed. So Google has maintained the first place for a long time, you do need to pay attention to them but don’t disregard Bing and Yahoo and truly if you’re optimizing your website, don’t worry about the others so changing. Really focus on those top three and you’ll be in very very good shape for the indexation of your website.

RP: Yeah, there’s a… And it’s interesting because sometimes as business owners, we get a little greedy and we want everything. It’s like “Ah, I want to be in Google, I want to be in Yahoo, and I want to be Bing.” If you’re playing well in Google, if you’re in the top three on Google and you’re doing well, then be happy with that. If your Yahoo and your Bing aren’t quite there, that’s okay ’cause the last thing you want to do is make changes to try and attract Yahoo and Bing and then lose Google. And I’ve noticed that over the years that for whatever reason, key words that typically rank well on Google, they do a search engine or a ranking report for clients, if they search well for Google, a lot of times they may be on the first page on Yahoo or Bing but a lot of times they might be on the second page and then the client’s like “Oh, we’re on Google. Yay, but I want to get Yahoo and Bing up on the first page.” And that can be dangerous because you go down the report to some other key words and you’re not even on Google but you’re on the first page of Yahoo and Bing and it’s like “Where would you rather be?” So sometimes, don’t be greedy, focus on the Google, you’ll be fine. Yes, there’s another 35% out there but especially for local traffic, just focus on Google. You’ll be fine.

VD: I totally agree with you about taking that risk to change your good position in Google just to cater to Yahoo or AOL, or all those little search engines not worth the risk.

RP: Yeah, just don’t do it. Alright Virginie, that is it for today’s show on the top five search engines. We will be back next week, same place, same computer to talk some more great internet marketing tools and tidbits. As always, I appreciate the time and energy that you put into the show and I hope you have a great day.

VD: You too, goodbye.

RP: Alright everybody, that’s if for today’s show. We will see you next week, take care.