Category Archives: SEO

The Slow Decline of Google… Long Life to Google

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Google has long been the king of search engines, rising to unprecedented dominance in the digital world. Since its inception in 1998, Google has shaped how we access information, made an indelible mark on business and advertising, and embedded itself into the very fabric of our daily lives. The search giant has grown so ubiquitous that “Googling” has become synonymous with searching for anything online. However, in recent years, signs of a slow decline have emerged in its market share. While still towering above its competitors, the landscape of search and information discovery has shifted, posing challenges for Google’s once-unchallenged reign.

The Vastness of Google’s Empire

To understand just how massive Google is today, it’s important to look at the numbers. According to recent statistics from Semrush, Google processes 5.9 million searches per minute. This equates to roughly 8.5 billion searches daily, or a staggering 3.1 trillion searches per year. For perspective, this means more searches are conducted in a single day than the number of people on the planet.

Google’s influence doesn’t stop at its search engine. It dominates global digital advertising, accounting for 28.6% of all digital ad spend in 2024. Its ecosystem of services—from YouTube, the second-largest search engine in its own right, to Google Ads, Google Maps, and Google Cloud—ensures that it continues to shape both consumer behavior and enterprise solutions.

Google’s search market share, despite its decline, remains robust. As of 2024, Google commands 91.5% of the global search engine market, dwarfing its closest competitors. Mobile devices account for 63% of all Google searches, a testament to the platform’s adaptability as users shift from desktop to mobile-first environments. Google’s infrastructure has scaled accordingly, indexing tens of trillions of unique URLs and processing hundreds of billions of web pages each day.

However, these impressive figures also hint at a slowing rate of growth. The early 2000s saw Google expanding at explosive rates, growing by over 1,000% between 1999 and 2000 alone. By the early 2010s, Google had captured around 90% of the global search market. But fast forward to today, and its share has dropped closer to 80% in certain markets, such as the United States, while its global dominance remains over 90%​(Search Engine Journal)​(Internet Live Stats).

The Shifting Landscape: Competition and Changing Search Behaviors

A 10% drop in market share might not seem like much, especially for a company as vast as Google. However, the drop is significant in the context of how the internet landscape has changed in recent years. One of the key drivers of this change has been the rise of alternative content discovery platforms and the evolving habits of younger generations.

Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have increasingly replaced traditional search engines as the starting points for information discovery, particularly among Gen Z users. TikTok, in particular, has positioned itself as a hub for finding product reviews, tutorials, and trends, often bypassing Google searches altogether​(CCM). For a generation that craves visual, interactive content, TikTok’s quick, engaging format delivers results in a way that Google cannot. Likewise, Instagram’s role as a discovery tool for products and brands has solidified its place in the search ecosystem, chipping away at Google’s search dominance​(DataReportal – Global Digital Insights).

The rise of these platforms represents a broader trend of users seeking more personalized, engaging content, often from their peers. This differs from Google’s more hierarchical and algorithm-driven search results. While Google still delivers efficient, accurate search results, many users are now opting for the serendipitous, community-driven experiences that social media platforms provide.

Google’s Innovations to Stay Relevant

Google is not passively watching this decline happen. The company has made several key investments in AI, machine learning, and automation to enhance its search capabilities and maintain its relevance in an increasingly fragmented digital landscape. Google’s AI algorithms, such as RankBrain and BERT, are designed to better understand natural language queries, making search results more intuitive for users.

Moreover, Google is aggressively expanding into new markets, including cloud computing and autonomous technology. Google Cloud is now one of the company’s fastest-growing sectors, and its investments in artificial intelligence are making waves in industries such as healthcare, logistics, and education. These strategic moves show that Google’s future is not solely tied to its search engine, but rather a diversified portfolio of products and services​(DataReportal – Global Digital Insights).

The Future of Google: Challenges and Longevity

Despite its current dominance, Google faces challenges from both competitors and regulatory scrutiny. Microsoft’s Bing, although holding a relatively small share, has grown steadily, boosted by its integration of AI-powered features and partnerships with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Additionally, global search engines like Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia offer regional competition, further eroding Google’s international market share​(Search Engine Journal).

There is also growing discontent around the quality of Google’s search results. Some users and SEO experts argue that Google prioritizes paid advertisements and popular content over more relevant, organic search results. As users’ search preferences evolve, Google will need to adapt its algorithms to keep up with the expectations for more personalized and community-based results​(Search Engine Journal).

Nevertheless, the idea of Google’s “demise” is greatly exaggerated. Its scale, infrastructure, and integration across so many aspects of digital life ensure its continued relevance. While its market share has dropped from its peak of 90% in 2010 to around 80% today, the company still processes billions of searches daily, commands massive advertising revenues, and plays a vital role in the internet economy​(Search Engine Journal)​(Internet Live Stats).

Conclusion: Long Life to Google

The narrative of Google’s decline may reflect changes in user behavior and increased competition, but it’s far from a tale of obsolescence. With 91.5% of global market share, 3.1 trillion searches per year, and a sprawling ecosystem of services, Google remains a behemoth in the digital world. Its adaptability, continuous innovation, and diverse product offerings will ensure its place at the forefront of the internet for years to come.

So while we may see subtle shifts in search habits, it’s clear that Google’s reign is far from over. Long life to Google, indeed!

Top 4 Everyday SEO Tools for Small Business 

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Getting SEO right is the first step to a successful digital strategy for any organization. If correctly implemented, it will lead to higher page rankings on search engines, better site visibility, increased organic traffic, as well as improved advertising efficiency. These, in turn, translate to increased revenue and business growth. However, despite SEO being useful, many small businesses do not enjoy these obvious benefits for a couple of reasons.

Some are not conversant with the strategies, while others mistakenly presume setting a Search Engine Optimization campaign is a one-time set-and-forget thing. A successful SEO campaign involves continuous careful planning and implementation. Fortunately, there are many helpful digital tools business owners can use to understand and improve their online marketing efforts. Some of these tools include;

· Google Analytics

· Semrush

· Ahref

· Open site explorer

 

1. Google Analytics

It is one of the most powerful digital marketing tools. This Google tool gives business owners the means of assessing the performance of their digital marketing campaigns. It offers valuable information like where the site visitors come from, how they ended up on the site, what attracted the visitors to the site, the keywords that they used, the content they loved, as well as the marketing tactics that resulted in the most leads and conversions. Furthermore, the tools support the multiple viewing of Google Analytics, exportation of reports to different formats like PDF, CSV, TSV, XML and much more.

Armed with such statistics, it becomes easy for small business owners to determine whether or not the website meets the desired objective. To get this free useful tool, a business owner simply needs to set up a Google account and install the Analytics tracking code to his or her website or blog.

Small business owners should log in daily in their google analytics account and keep an eye on the performance of their keywords this helps the entrepreneurs to create a successful ongoing content strategy for the site through constant brainstorming.

2. SEMrush

Even though SEMrush’s designers had SEO professional in mind when creating this useful SEO tool, small business webmasters can also benefit significantly from it. The way it works is that one inputs on the semrush.com platform, the URL of the website under consideration. The platform will then generate a list of keywords for which the site in question already ranks on search engines and an estimate of the number of times people searched those particular keywords in a given month. Subsequently, a business owner can decide whether or not a particular keyword is worth optimizing. So weekly check your keyword position and that of your competitor.

SEMrush users concur that it is one of the leading competitive research tools in the digital world. It is a superb way of monitoring and researching the competitor’s ads in that when combined with the competitor’s website data it is easy to study, understand and defeat the competition. The tool comes in two versions of free and premium. The paid version naturally contains more superior features including the ability to perform more searches daily.

3. Ahrefs

Any seasoned webmaster would attest to the importance of backlinks in as far as web traffic generation and web page ranking goes. The higher the number of links directing to your website, the higher the chances of traffic. The links, however, must be natural to ensure they are not flagged by Google algorithms such as Penguin, subsequently affecting the page rankings. Thanks to the Ahrefs tool, a small business owner has access to a full backlink tools suite. It contains useful features like the Site Explorer, Position Explorer, Content Explorer, Position Tracker, Crawl Report and Ahrefs Alerts. Aherf back link index is far superior and updated very frequently. So check if you are getting backlinks.

These tools make it possible to assess if the website links come from legitimate sites, and remove those that come from illegitimate or spammy platforms. Furthermore, through Ahrefs, a person can conduct a competitor analysis to identify the source of the competitor’s backlinks and adopt the strategies that would lead to success.

4. Moz Open Site Explorer

Moz is another backlink tool, but it does other things as well. For instance, it offers small business webmasters several tracking tools for understanding better the website’s search engine landscape and determine the importance of a site. It does so by revealing the top ranking keywords on the site, the high authority pages, the number of backlinks, lists of URLs that direct to your site as well as the most recent links to your site or blog. Such information is vital for increasing the amount of outbound links that lead to the site. The tool has a user-friendly and easy to use interface. Just go to the moz.com website, input your URL and conduct a search.

But the most useful function of the open site explorer is the measurement of Domain Authority that since the demise of google Page Rank is rapidly becoming the standard. Domain Authority or often abbreviated DA is a measure of the domain strength. From 0 to 100 it tells how powerful and authoritative is your site. You can use for free and if you register you can get more searches for no money. Check it here.

moz

Domain Authority tells how powerful is your domain.

 

 

Conclusion

The above tools are relatively straightforward to use and include free versions. They are ideal for any small business owner who wishes to revamp his or her SEO campaigns and help the company achieve its profitability and growth objectives.

SEO: How to Solve the Not Provided Dilemma

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The Not Provided dilemma is affecting countless SEO specialists and webmasters. As part of Google’s recent updates, nearly 80% of keywords no longer appear in search results. This is an attempt by the popular search engine to reduce the ability of SEO expert to track their keywords performance, taking away the ability of concentrating more on specific KW. This ongoing problem has impacted the ability of users to extract vital data from analytic that pinpoint keyword and SEO performance. To combat this issue, the folks at SEOMonitor.com have devised a tool that accurately measures KW accuracy and offers previously unattainable information. Utilizing a blend of data from analysts and webmaster tools, the tool is heralded for its real time results and precision.

 

not provided keywords

80% of keywords are not provided by google

 The SEO Monitor

SEO Monitor utilizes innovative tools that accurately analyze and assess keyword data. This information, of course, falls under the not-provided category, however, is the perfect solution for SEO professionals looking for better insight and performance. The tool also evaluates not provided SEO traffics using a combination of data from analytic, webmaster tool, your site data and a proprietary algorithm. With this impressive tool, SEO experts are able to control and manage their entries from one convenient and comprehensive source. With plans ranging from $24 – $199 per month, this is the ultimate solution for those feeling the brunt of Google’s new search algorithms and parameters. All plans come with a 14 days free trial for your convenience.

Additional Benefits

SEO Monitor unlocks hidden data from Google analytics. This allows users to see which branded and non-branded keywords are really driving productivity and results. Having this information is a key factor in securing greater visibility, while making sure your SEO strategies are in line and working. Whether you want to recover lost data or formulate new entries, you are guaranteed optimal accuracy and not just guess. The rank tracker is another benefit built in the system, which precisely measures the position of your keywords on the search engine pages.  Whether it’s generating leads or revenue, why rely on estimation when you can get clear and concise returns that foster greater online growth? This includes automated KW research, along with reputation, competitor, and rank tracking.

For more information on reliable and effective keyword management, simply visit SEOMonitor.com today. Their services have received stellar reviews from SEO critics and clients alike. If you are struggling to attract and engage potential and new visitors, their tools are guaranteed to meet your needs within time and budget.