How to Compete with Google Search

It isn't easy to compete with Google. Many have tried and failed; but not because it is impossible to compete with the search engine giant but because competitors fail to realize the company's weaknesses unlike Google, which recognized and capitalized other search engines' weaknesses in 1997 and rose to the dominant position it holds today.

While it is incredibly difficult to compete with Google on the quality of search results there are other avenues that are much more vulnerable. For example, Google has always been and continues to be criticized for its privacy policies both in its mail offering as well as the data retention policies for its search engine. Furthermore, Google's decision to cooperate with the Chinese government and filter search results also raises some concerns.

The latter of the two concerns is of course a more sensitive matter and one with less flexibility but we're already seeing other search engines noticing Google's privacy dilemma and are capitalizing on it. Ask.com announced just a few days back that not only was it instituting a new data retention policy where there would be no way to link searches to IP addresses (Google can and does link your searches to your IP for their own research) but that they would be launching a new product called "AskEraser" in the near future. Microsoft, too, of course jumped on the bandwagon and announced increase privacy options in their own search engine.

AskEraser, which allows you to completely wipe any hint of your search history from Ask.com addresses exactly those concerns that have worried privacy watchdogs and consumers' rights groups about Google for years.

Anonymous user data can be very useful to enhance search products for all users, and we're committed to being open and transparent about how such information is used. But we also understand that there are some who are interested in new tools that will help protect their privacy further, and we will give them that control on Ask.com.

The step by Ask.com and Microsoft just goes on to show that Google is not invincible. You just have to find the right avenue to exploit and you can cut yourself one more sliver of the pie.

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techscoot, July 25, 2007: Iquick.com offers a privacy search for over a year now. It does everything the askeraser promises to do in december. I have used ixquick for many of my searches.
CT Moore, July 26, 2007: Telling me that Google isn't invincible doesn't help me. It's like telling me that Mike Tyson isn't invincible right before I have to step into the ring with him.
House of Hancock Inc, July 29, 2007: I don't think the point of this post was necessarily that Google isn't invincible. I think the strength of this post is that one must focus on the weakness of a giant like Google to ever consider overpowering their strength in numbers and so on. My opinion is this was a great point to bring into the spotlight. I am a Google fan myself in many areas but at the same time I can see they have many weaknesses that another company could leverage against them.
Matt Ellsworth, November 10, 2007: Good to know. I never really think about it being tracked by IP address. I figured it was tracked by account usage though.