Alternatives to Google

Alternatives to Google

Dirk Lewandowski Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Department of Information, Germany [email protected] http://www.searchstudies.org/dirk @Dirk_Lew Lund University, March 18, 2014

Outline

1.  Web search today 2.  Results presentation and selection 3.  Alternative search engines 4.  Conclusion

1. Web search today

Web Search today

•  Everyone uses search engines (Purcell, Brenner & Raine, 2012; van Eimeren & Frees, 2012)

•  Search is huge à More than 175 billion queries in a single month (ComScore data, December 2012)

•  Search is everywhere: News, video, maps, e-commerce, mobile, apps, etc. •  Web search market is dominated by Google (especially in Europe)

(ComScore data) •  Users rely on

–  Google’s method of ordering results

–  Google’s method of collecting data

à Using the internet – Using search engines – using Google à If Google hasn’t seen it — and indexed it — or kept it up to date, it can’t be found with a search query.

Search engines’ business model

•  Ads, ads, ads •  Approx. 83% of

Google‘s revenues come from ads (Q4/2013)

Google Quarterly Earnings Summary Q3/2013, http://investor.google.com/pdf/2013Q4_google_earnings_slides.pdf

What about the alternatives to Google?

•  Many “seems to be” search engines –  Accessing the data of another search engine

–  Representing nothing more than an alternative user interface to one of the more well-known engines

–  In many cases, that turns out to be Google

–  E.g., in Germany, we can see that the major internet portals T-Online, GMX, AOL, and web.de all display results obtained from Google

Partner model

•  “Real” search engine providers such as Google and Bing operate their own search engines but also provide their search results to partners

•  All the major web portals have now embraced this model.

•  Income through ads; revenue-sharing

•  Attractiveness of the model –  The search engine provider encounters only minimal costs

–  The operator of the portal no longer needs to go to the great expense of running its own search engine.

–  The partner index model has served to thin out the competition in the search industry.

2. Results presentation and selection

Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)

•  Four main areas: – Organic results

– Navigational elements, drill-down menus, etc.

–  Advertisements

–  Knowledge Graph

•  Perception of SERPs –  Above the fold

–  Below the fold

Changes in the results presentation

1.  List-based results presentation –  Well-established reading behaviour, from top to bottom

2.  Universal Search –  Still list-based, but additional elements –  Results are not presented in the same way anymore; graphical elements

influence users results perception and their selection behaviour

3.  Direct answers, factual information –  List-based presentation has less influence –  Results are not necessarily links to documents, but also direct answers (no need

to leave the search engine to get a result)

xxxx

•  xxxx

(Granka et al. 2004)

xxxx

•  xxxx

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

•  The aim of search engine optimization is to increase the visibility of certain documents in the Web search engines

•  SEO has a positive and negative effect, as well •  Focus of SEO changes from purely commercial to relevant informational content: –  SEO for news

–  SEO for NGOs, public relations, and government institutions

–  Academic SEO

Case study: Vertical search

•  Google Shopping –  Index based on data feeds from merchants

–  Since 2013, pay-for-inclusion model

•  Results from a study on Google’s proposal in the E.U. competition investigation (2013) –  Representative, click-based study in four countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain)

–  1,000 respondents per country

Google Shopping results

Google Ads

Information icon with hover text

Information icon with hover text

Organic results

Clickable areas

Rival links

20

Lewandowski, D.; Sünkler, S.: Representative online study to evaluate the commitments proposed by Google as part of EU competition investigation AT.39740-Google - Report for Germany http://www.bui.haw-hamburg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/lewandowski/google-reports/Google_Online_Survey_DE.pdf

Total number of clicks: 1000 Number of clicks on shopping results and links to rival offerings: 642

Most of the clicks were on organic results and Google Shopping results (93%).

593 clicks (59.3%)

0 clicks (0%)

358 clicks (35.8%)

49 clicks (4.9%)

Logged clicks

23


Task 1: DSLR camera (desktop layout)

1

Germany France Spain Italy

Distribution of clicks (n = 1000 for each country)

Google Shopping Results

593 (59.3%) 667 (66.7%) 587 (58.7%) 632 (63.2%)

Organic Results 358 (35.8%) 279 (27.9%) 410 (41%) 289 (28.9%)

Rival Links 49 (4.9%) 54 (5.4%) 3 (0.3%) 79 (7.9%)



Most of the clicks were on organic results and Google Shopping results (79.8%).

Google’s second proposal (version a)

418 clicks (41.8%)

380 clicks (38%)

202 clicks (20.2%)

0 clicks (0%)

Google’s second proposal (version b)


Most of the clicks were on organic results and Google Shopping results (83.4%).

Google’s second proposal (version b)

423 clicks (42.3%)

411 clicks (41.1%)

166 clicks (16.6%)

0 clicks (0%)

http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/03/google-shopping-panel-nest1.jpg

Interplay between search engines and their users

•  Problems arising from –  Users not being aware of the possibilities search engines offer

–  Users not knowing how search engines work

–  Users not knowing about search engines’ business models

•  Problems arising from the market dominance of one search engine –  Influence of the results presentation

–  Influence of search engine optimization

–  Collection and tracking of user data

à On the one hand, we have to increase users’ information literacy. On the other hand, we need to increase diversity on the search market

3. Alternative search engines

The simple answer: There is no perfect search engine

•  Web Indexing –  New, changed, deleted document

–  “Holy grail” of keeping the index complete and current

Risvik, K. M., & Michelsen, R. (2002). Search engines and web dynamics. Computer Networks, 39(3), 289–302.

Freshness of Web search engines (see Lewandowski, Wahlig & Meyer-Bautor, 2006; Lewandowski, 2008)

Why is one search engine not enough?

•  No one search engine covers the whole of the Web –  Index size and index freshness

–  Integration of Facebook content in Bing; Google+ content in Google

•  We need more than one search engine to ensure that a broad range of opinions are represented in the search market.

•  Users should have the choice between different worldviews which originate as a product of algorithm-based search result generation

•  Ideology-free search algorithms are simply not possible

Alternative Search Engines

•  What constitutes an “alternative search engine”? –  All search engines that are not Google (e.g., Bing)

–  Meta-search engines (e.g., Dogpile, Metager)

–  Search engines which explicitly position themselves as an alternative to Google through a regional approach (e.g., Seekport)

–  New approaches to search / “Real alternatives”: Alternative approaches to gathering and representing web content

à  Only a few noteworthy alternatives: mainly Bing, but some to watch à  Yandex

à  Duck Duck Go

Economic perspective

•  Only the largest internet companies are able to afford large indexes. •  Microsoft is the only company besides Google to possess a comprehensive

search engine index.

•  Yahoo gave up on its own index several years ago

•  It appears as though operating a dedicated index is attractive to practically no one — and there are hardly any candidates with the necessary financial resources in any case

Vision

•  “An index of the web that can be accessed at fair conditions for everyone”

–  “Everyone” means that anyone who is interested can access the index.

–  “Fair conditions” does not mean that access to the index must be free of charge for everyone. A certain number of document requests per day should be available at no cost in order to promote non-profit projects.

–  “Access” to the index can be defined as the ability to automatically query the index with ease.

–  The concept “index of the web” is intended to cover as much of the web as possible

4. Conclusion

#1

The current market dominance of Google leads to only one of many possible views on the Web’s information.

#2

The market failed in establishing alternatives to Google.

#3

Results presentation heavily influences users’ perception of the results, and their selection behaviour, as well.

#4

An independent index of the Web would motivate companies, institutions, and developers to create their own search applications.

#5

An independent index of the Web would enable applications we are not yet capable of even imagining.

Thank you

Prof. Dr. Dirk Lewandowski Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg dirk.lewandowski@haw-hamburg,de Twitter: Dirk_Lew http://www.searchstudies.org/dirk

Alternatives to Google

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