• Phil Bradley's Blog, Monday, January 7, 2008 4 PM

Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask don't just rule the roost for core search in the U.S.--they also dominate when it comes to search market share across the pond. The Big Four are so dominant in the UK that they've sent nearly 50 smaller search engines to the dead pool within 3 years, according to Phil Bradley.

Back in 2005, Bradley posted a list of some 164 engines UK searchers could use, including shopping engines and others complete with Web 2.0 names like "Beegoo," "Fush," and "Wahooma"--and wanted to make sure the list was updated once we rang in '08.

Three years later, some 28% (or 46, exactly) are no longer functional. In most cases the URL doesn't work, in others it has been turned into a parked domain, and a few URLs have even been snapped up by completely different businesses.

Given the success of the Big Four, Bradley says that the attrition rate of alt UK search engines "isn't that much of a surprise." But it does pose the question of whether search startups really do have a fair shot at succeeding in the market--both in the U.S. and abroad.

Read the whole story at Phil Bradley's Blog »