No one imagined back in 1998 how a tiny start-up would turn out to be a global leader in the search industry in less than a decade! Yahoo must still be feeling like fools for agreeing to put Google’s search box on its home page, giving their users a taste of what was to come. A move that would prove to have cataclysmic consequences for a once successful leader in its field. In a classic failure of foresight, they turned down an offer to buy Page & Brin’s search technology for a paltry $1.6m. And where was Microsoft?

But is Google’s search technology still that much better than any other search engine? Is it not perhaps a case of Google’s brand being so dominant & well known that users are automatically turning to it to conduct their searches? In fact, Google is so widely used that the Oxford English Dictionary has added it as a verb (“Google it” To use the Google search engine to find information on the Internet. To search for information about (a person or thing) using the Google search engine).

While Google draws 60% of searches worldwide with its closest competitor (Yahoo) at 14% the percentage of users who return to the top 3 sites places Google’s lead in a different perspective: Although Google enjoys a 79% rate of return, Yahoo  & Microsoft are not far behind at 69% & 65% respectively (Nielsen/NetRatings). Added to this, a recent University of Michigan study showed that Yahoo has surpassed Google in terms of customer satisfaction! (Google doesn’t seem too concerned about this!)

While Google enjoys 82% of search queries in Germany, both the French & German governments are planning to inject a combined $387 million into search engine research. In China, the biggest emerging online market, Google receives only 17% of queries & in Japan it trails behind Yahoo. The Japanese government is also funding local search efforts to the tune of $125 million.

The question is: “Will Google be able to sustain its position as a market leader & be the fairest search engine of all?”

Social networking, through sites like MySpace & FaceBook, has become enormously popular. In fact social networking has become more popular than online porn! (Wives & girlfriends all across the world are sleeping easier at night…) Google has been quick enough to slap down $900 million for the right to provide search & serve ads on MySpace. They clearly take note of the projected ad spend of $2 billion on social networking sites in 2010. In addition they are determined to fight Facebook by unveiling an open-standard for developers to create applications that will work on a number of social networking sites. This move will give Google access to over 100 million additional users!

And it doesn’t end there: Google is entering the world of wireless technology. Clearly their intention is to entrench their position even further in both search & online advertising. Google will be providing the software that will be installed on handsets under the open source licensing model. A move that does not sit well with companies like Microsoft, Palm or Symbian that have invested vast amounts of money in developing operating software for mobile phones.

While many market leaders have had their bubble burst, the likes of Novell, Lotus & AOL come to mind, my money is on Google. I believe they will find a way of managing to stay at the forefront of their business (& that of many others’) even if it means gobbling up smaller companies that may pose a risk, for a few pieces of silver.