There was a point this summer when 2009 was set to become The Year of the Google Killer. Two highly anticipated launches had Google’s dominance in search squarely in their sites.

And so along came Wolfram Alpha and along came Bing — and away they went with hardly a murmur to mark their passing.

Without nearly as much post launch analysis as there was prelaunch hype, both search engine wannabes have been regulated to afterthoughts on the Web. Sure, Bing has some interesting features and Wolfram Alpha has been hailed as the world’s most search-friendly calculator, but neither has slowed the Google monster.

In a poll by Mashable.com, Google outpaced Bing as the best search engine – 78 to 19 percent among readers. And in the perception of the public, far less savvy than the typical Mashable reader, the gap is probably wider.

Bing has had trouble this season keeping its site up and seems to have not gained enough ground with the public despite a reported $100 million marketing budget. Recent statistics show all of Microsoft search products with still under a 10 percent of market share.

Wolfram Alpha seems to have given up the battle with Google entirely, moving away from any general audience appeal to more of a niche audience, as evidenced by a $50 iPhone app.

What makes Google so dominant? It has the market share of a giant, but the flexibility and innovation of a group of whiz kids. Google is growing in two directions simultaneously – bigger, but with more specialized products; more complex, yet also more simple.

Google has invested heavily in developing Google Docs with the goal of providing a legitimate cloud alternative to Microsoft Word and its’ Chrome Operating System is most endusers’ choice to run on netbooks.  While just last week Google reached the epitome of minimalism when it scaled down its home page to show only its logo and a search bar (see coverage here).

And while all this is happening, the heart of Google’s search continues to roll along, powered by users and supported by a billion-dollar business of targeted advertising – which may be the biggest reason the Google tower may never be toppled.

Whatever in-roads Bing might make on getting casual Web users to search with their engine, the site would have to spend millions of dollars and man-hours replicating and replacing AdWords to get to the real heart of Google.

Anyone who watched CNBC’s recent special on Google could see Google has not just built a business model around its ad business, but an ecosystem that thousands of web-based and brick-and-mortar businesses depend on, not just for income but for information.

Much in the same way Microsoft had at one time cornered the market on the personal computer, Google has set itself up as a backbone for the entire Internet economy. Business doesn’t get done daily without being facilitated in some way by the Internet giant. But unlike Microsoft, who has seemed more vulnerable over the years, the reason there may never be a Google Killer is because the Web can’t afford the costs of replacement.

Source:
Is the Google Killer a Myth?