• Alt Search Engines, Wednesday, April 16, 2008 1:15 PM

There are thousands (literally) of alternative search engines, but their combined market share is less than 2% of the overall market. In contrast, Google alone commands a market share of about 70%. And according to Nitin Karandikar, the search giant is so -- well, giant, that challengers like Powerset don't stand a chance at snagging significant market share.

This large majority of Internet users that are Googling are all "slowly and inexorably getting trained in the 'Google way" of searching: keyword-ese, a highly minimalist user interface, the SERPs results page, and so on," Karandikar says. "Whether or not it's the best way to do things, that's what users are accustomed to, and that's what they expect."

So if an upstart engine emerges with a far superior user experience and more relevant results--just masked with a different interface (i.e. Powerset)--the company has a major uphill battle in just convincing a significant portion of average Joes to try (let alone switch to) its service. Without a large enough segment of the population testing, trying and talking about the new service, then it doesn't stand a chance of becoming mainstream. And this user inertia represents a major roadblock for challengers like Powerset, Clusty, Quintura, Exalead, Cuill (and seemingly even Ask, Yahoo and MSN) in the quest for market share.

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