INTRODUCTION
The general search engine has revolutionized how we live. Information that once took hours or days to acquire can now be found in an instant on the internet with the help of a general search engine. General search engines use powerful algorithms to create what seems like magic. Enter a search query, and the general search engine will retrieve, rank, and display the websites that provide the exact information the user seeks at that very moment. And it all happens in the blink of an eye.
General search engines make money by selling digital advertisements. Type the words “running shoes” into a general search engine, and sellers of running shoes will compete with one another in a split-second auction to place an advertisement on the results page, which if clicked takes the user directly to the seller’s website. This is a highly effective way of reaching consumers. It is also an incredibly lucrative business. In 2021, advertisers spent more than $150 billion to reach users of general search engines.
For more than 15 years, one general search engine has stood above the rest: Google. The brand is synonymous with search. Once a scrappy start-up founded by two Stanford University students in a rented garage, Google is now one of the world’s most valuable companies. Its parent company, Alphabet Inc., today has a market capitalization (the value of its outstanding shares of stock) of more than $2 trillion. Much of that value is due to Google’s extremely profitable advertising business.
Google’s dominance has gone unchallenged for well over a decade. In 2009, 80% of all search queries in the United States already went through Google. That number has only grown. By 2020, it was nearly 90%, and even higher on mobile devices at almost 95%. The second-place search engine, Microsoft’s Bing, sees roughly 6% of all search queries—84% fewer than Google.
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