To 'Google it', is to Search the Internet

Microsoft's bid for Yahoo is, among many other things, acknowledgment that the world's largest software company needs some major help against Google in the online search and ad businesses.

What, then, is Google's secret in beating a much larger company, one that has trounced so many others over the years?

Analysts say Google uses a combination of superior software and a consumer perception of coolness to continually trounce rivals, which include InterActiveCorp.'s Ask, besides Yahoo and Microsoft.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has managed to extend its search lead against Microsoft and Yahoo, despite both companies' aggressive attempts to build better search services.

From the get-go, Google took a simplified approach, providing a cutting-edge search engine with an ad-free home page. Early on, the search service was accessible to users with first-generation dial-up Internet connections.

Google came into the market and created a better mousetrap in the form of a search engine. As the Internet has grown, Google has become synonymous with finding things on the Internet.

In the last few years Google has become a veritable icon. It's common for people to use the company's name as a verb for conducting a Web search. The Google name is so ubiquitous that it often shows up even in comic strips.

The fact that it has become a cultural phenomenon has only added to its momentum and nobody has been able to introduce anything that has convinced consumers to abandon it.

As a result, Google's share of searches in the U.S. rose to 58.5% in the fourth quarter, up from 50.3% in fourth-quarter 2006.

Google never has been a company to sit on its hands. The company continually improves its software, which helps make the service more addictive to consumers and advertisers. They literally make tweaks to their (software) algorithm every week.

For the month of December, Google processed 5.6 million search queries in the U.S., far more than anyone and up 30% vs. a year ago. No. 2 Yahoo had 2.2 million queries, down 4%. No. 3 Microsoft rose 8% to 940,000.

In the past year, Yahoo and Microsoft actually have matched Google in terms of the quality of search results, but most consumers haven't bothered to check. There's not that much difference among them, but people just think Google is better. For Yahoo and Microsoft, it's a brand perception problem.