SEO Articles

When it comes to search engine optimisation there is a supreme force that stands tall above all the rest. You may have heard of them (if you haven't it's time to leave that cave you call home and once again blink into the sunlight) for they pretty much rule the search engine roost worldwide.

Google has come a long way in the ten years since its inception. They have single-handedly revolutionised the way search engines work in their mission to “... to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Presently, Google holds 85% percent of the UK search market in the palm of its hand. This is a combination of their .com and .co.uk domains. Perhaps surprisingly, Ask comes in second with 3.55%, followed closely by Yahoo with 3.52%. The remainder an amalgamation of the other search engines.

Figures like this add weight to the theory in SEO circles that “Google owns the internet”. For the UK, at least, they pretty much are the internet. They also own companies such as Feedburner, the market leader for managing RSS feeds; Blogger, one of the largest blogging platforms; and YouTube, the top online video hosting service. Rumours have been rife for a long time now that they are also determined to acquire the top social network system Facebook, although Microsoft have seemingly pipped them to the post, acquiring a 1.6% stake in the company for an amazing $240m.

With such unparalleled domination of the internet and search markets, it's good practice to always bear Google in mind when carrying out search engine optimisation. They have strict guidelines they expect you to adhere to, and failure to do so can trigger one of the numerous spam filters they use as part of their algorithm to weed out undesirable sites and practices. Some might say they are too strict with genuine and legitimately optimised sites often falling into these overly-zealous pitfalls that the stringent webmaster guidelines touch upon.

Will Google's bubble burst?

Who knows? In the present financial climate with the world's resources now owned by fewer and fewer singular entities you wouldn't bank on it, although nothing lasts forever – remember, Google itself was once little more than a pipe-dream. What is certain though is that to ignore Google and the power they wield is done at one's own peril. Until a genuine contender poses a serious threat to Google's current stranglehold, we must abide by their laws if we value a position in the world's largest search engine.

"Googol" is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.
From Google's corporate overview