A US judge has ruled against Google in a recent anti trust case, potentially leading to huge changes in how the search engine giant operates its core services to maintain its 92% market share dominance. You’ll be reassured to know we predicted this situation last year and have closely monitored the case as it unfolded.
Google were accused of stifling any competition and hindering innovation in the search space to maintain its dominance unfairly. Specifically, deals put in place to make it the default search engine on devices and platforms seeks to ensure Google remains the first choice for consumers and prevents competitors from gaining market share. These accusations are very similar to those lobbied against Microsoft many years ago (where the monopolistic practices of Microsoft utilised the dominance of Windows to push other Microsoft owned products onto users). Google’s position, both as a brand and its financial advantage, are described as being used to bully other competitors out of the market with anti-competitive deals that serve to lock out anyone else.
The outcome and ultimate reason for the case is that these actions have had a negative effect on competition and therefore end users. Limited choice, reduced quality of results and lack of innovation are all alleged results of Google’s monopoly.
Google’s defence has naturally been that its search market dominance is the result of quality results provided to users, continuous improvement of services and that it already faces competition from a number of sources such as Bing, Amazon and Yelp.
However, it has been ruled yesterday that Google has used illegal practices to maintain its dominance and held on to an illegal monopoly in two core areas, search and text advertising. The decision, which was presided over by 38 attorneys, has potentially huge ramifications for the digital marketing space if Google’s market share dominance is challenged. While any change is unlikely to be immediate, looking ahead at the possible market changes could help provide a significant marketing advantage in the years ahead.
For SEO agencies, other search engines suddenly become much more relevant in mainstream SEO campaigns. While smaller, more niche situations often already consider smaller search engines, they are usually secondary targets. If Google were to lose ground to one or more search engines, these would play a much more important role in SEO strategies. Nevertheless, until there’s a dramatic shift in the “type” of search engine, search behaviour or results offered, it’s unlikely that SEO as a practice will be impacted heavily as most search engines assess websites in a Google-like fashion which creates extremely similar results – if you rank well in Google you often already rank well in other search engines. However, this could be challenged if someone like Bing was to gain ground.
More likely to be affected is PPC as advertising budgets will require redistribution, depending on where audiences are found and the potential split between search engines. It could also be that case that other advertising platforms will be allowed to run ads across Google search results. Where Google Ads reigns supreme right now for running search ads, dividing efforts across multiple platforms will have a significant effect on strategies, budgets and management time needed. While changes like these will cause initial disruption, it’s equally likely that new opportunities will open up for advertisers across these new platforms as ecosystems shift. Brands that are ready to react to these changes stand in good stead to take advantage.
We’ll be studying the ongoing results of the case as it has a potential to significantly affect our services and strategies. We’re openly very Google-centric in our approach to SEO but recognise that things may be forced to change for us as well as Google depending on the outcomes of this case. Equally, our PPC team are always looking for the best platforms to reach audiences, we already operate across Bing, Amazon and social platforms and we’ll be keenly monitoring any other changes to the paid media landscape. If you’d like to discuss these changes or learn more about any of our digital marketing services, please get in touch.