That information is a competitive advantage does not escape anyone in today's world, whether they are professionals or just users.
The difficulty lies in how this information is used to generate a differential value in the market and creates a barrier to entry for the rest of the new competitors.
The mighty barrier Google built around its offering and its customers started with a single technological innovation: better web search. This gave the company a formula to break into a wide range of other services.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed the algorithm PageRank while they were doctoral students at Stanford. Unlike existing site ranking algorithms that prioritize sites containing certain keywords, PageRank evaluated a site's relevance based on the number of times other websites had linked to it.
This relatively simple difference quickly converted Google in the dominant search engine on the Internet. In June 2000, it was the new default search engine for Yahoo, and in 2004, the company went public in a deal that gave Google a market capitalization of more than 23 billion dollars.
Over time, the domain of Google on searches and the data collected from them have enabled the company to build a strong and lasting competitive advantage in advertising. It is estimated that more than 5.000 billion searches are performed on Google every day, making it the most popular website in the world.
Another factor that makes Google attractive to advertisers is that many searches are done with the intention of buying a good or service. Airlines can advertise their flights when people search for "flights to Miami," bookstores can advertise their schedules when people search for "Brooklyn bookstore," and so on.
In 2020, Google had a roughly 28,9% share of the entire $152 billion digital ad market in the United States alone, according to eMarketer. For scheduled advertising delivered through online ad servers, Google has a 70% market share.
The company's dominance of advertising is so complete that 48 of the 50 US states have launched an antitrust investigation against the company, alleging that its control of advertising markets has caused harmful and anti-competitive effects for consumers.
However, Google it is not based solely on its market barriers against advertising competitors.
The company also leverages its ability to constantly acquire new data about what people are looking for to improve search and build new competitive entry niches in areas such as transportation and shopping.
The most important differentiating aspect of Google is that the company can link the search information with other data sources to which it has access, such as the mobile location data of the application of Google.
The result is a layer of added value. Searching for a company name in Google quickly appears not only what time it is open, but what times of the day are busiest - data that Google has from mobile device users who visit that location.
With its mapping products like Waze, Google It constantly records where people are on the roads, where they are going and how long they travel, generating a highly accurate real-time traffic map. When a user encounters a speed funnel or slow circulation, that information can be relayed to all other app users, making the experience better for everyone.
The deeper you go Google in the different facets of your users' lives, the better they are served and the more personalized results you can deliver. This customization makes it less likely that users will want to give up that convenience and go to another provider.
Just typing "weather" in Google and instantly get a forecast for the specific area. Entering "films" and the close ones appear. Entering "plumber" and a list of plumbers who are not only local, but are "guaranteed by Google", which implies that Google will refund the invoice amount if the work is not done properly.
This data virtuous cycle also feeds the advertising cycle. As the participation of Google As users' lives become deeper and more personalized, the targeting and personalization you can offer also become more valuable to advertisers.
Google it has been able to largely maintain its search superiority, both by offering "personalized smart results" and by retaining its status as a built-in browser on as many devices and operating systems as possible.
However, vulnerabilities have already appeared in the barriers that it has been raising in searches for Google. For example, there are more searches for products in Amazon that Google.
The main source of possible interruptions in the data hegemony of Google over the next few years it will be companies like Amazon, Yelp y Expedia, which aim to offer deeper and more personalized search results in specific sectors.
