Alternatives to Google
Dirk Lewandowski
Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Department of Information, Germany
dirk.lewandowski@haw-hamburg.de
http://www.searchstudies.org/dirk
@Dirk_Lew
Lund University, March 18, 2014

Outline
1. Web search today
2. Results presentation and selection
3. Alternative search engines
4. Conclusion

1. Web search today

Web Search today
• Everyone uses search engines (Purcell, Brenner & Raine, 2012; van Eimeren &
Frees, 2012)
• Search is huge à More than 175 billion queries in a single month (ComScore
data, December 2012)
• Search is everywhere: News, video, maps, e-commerce, mobile, apps, etc.
• Web search market is dominated by Google (especially in Europe)
(ComScore data)
• Users rely on
– Google’s method of ordering results
– Google’s method of collecting data
à Using the internet – Using search engines – using Google
à If Google hasn’t seen it — and indexed it — or kept it up to date, it
can’t be found with a search query.

Search engines’ business model
• Ads, ads, ads
• Approx. 83% of
Google‘s revenues
come from ads
(Q4/2013)
Google Quarterly Earnings Summary Q3/2013, http://investor.google.com/pdf/2013Q4_google_earnings_slides.pdf

What about the alternatives to Google?
• Many “seems to be” search engines
– Accessing the data of another search engine
– Representing nothing more than an alternative user interface to one of the more
well-known engines
– In many cases, that turns out to be Google
– E.g., in Germany, we can see that the major internet portals T-Online, GMX,
AOL, and web.de all display results obtained from Google

Partner model
• “Real” search engine providers such as Google and Bing operate their own
search engines but also provide their search results to partners
• All the major web portals have now embraced this model.
• Income through ads; revenue-sharing
• Attractiveness of the model
– The search engine provider encounters only minimal costs
– The operator of the portal no longer needs to go to the great expense of running
its own search engine.
– The partner index model has served to thin out the competition in the search
industry.

2. Results presentation and selection

Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
• Four main areas:
– Organic results
– Navigational elements, drill-down
menus, etc.
– Advertisements
– Knowledge Graph
• Perception of SERPs
– Above the fold
– Below the fold

Changes in the results presentation
1. List-based results presentation
– Well-established reading behaviour, from top to bottom
2. Universal Search
– Still list-based, but additional elements
– Results are not presented in the same way anymore; graphical elements
influence users results perception and their selection behaviour
3. Direct answers, factual information
– List-based presentation has less influence
– Results are not necessarily links to documents, but also direct answers (no need
to leave the search engine to get a result)

xxxx
• xxxx

(Granka et al. 2004)

xxxx
• xxxx

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• The aim of search engine optimization is to increase the visibility of
certain documents in the Web search engines
• SEO has a positive and negative effect, as well
• Focus of SEO changes from purely commercial to relevant
informational content:
– SEO for news
– SEO for NGOs, public relations, and government institutions
– Academic SEO

Case study: Vertical search
• Google Shopping
– Index based on data feeds from merchants
– Since 2013, pay-for-inclusion model
• Results from a study on Google’s proposal in the E.U. competition
investigation (2013)
– Representative, click-based study in four countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain)
– 1,000 respondents per country

Google Shopping results
Google Ads
Information icon
with hover text
Information icon
with hover text
Organic results
Clickable areas
Rival links
20
Lewandowski, D.; Sünkler, S.: Representative online study to evaluate the commitments proposed by Google as part of EU
competition investigation AT.39740-Google - Report for Germany
http://www.bui.haw-hamburg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/lewandowski/google-reports/Google_Online_Survey_DE.pdf

Total number of clicks:
1000
Number of clicks on
shopping results and links
to rival offerings: 642
Most of the clicks were on
organic results and Google
Shopping results (93%).
593 clicks (59.3%)
0 clicks (0%)
358 clicks (35.8%)
49 clicks (4.9%)
Logged clicks
23
Lewandowski, D.; Sünkler, S.: Representative online study to evaluate the commitments proposed by Google as part of EU
competition investigation AT.39740-Google - Report for Germany
http://www.bui.haw-hamburg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/lewandowski/google-reports/Google_Online_Survey_DE.pdf

Task 1: DSLR camera (desktop layout)
1
Germany France Spain Italy
Distribution of clicks
(n = 1000 for each
country)
Google Shopping
Results
593 (59.3%) 667 (66.7%) 587 (58.7%) 632 (63.2%)
Organic Results 358 (35.8%) 279 (27.9%) 410 (41%) 289 (28.9%)
Rival Links 49 (4.9%) 54 (5.4%) 3 (0.3%) 79 (7.9%)
Lewandowski, D.; Sünkler, S.: Representative online study to evaluate the commitments proposed by Google as part of EU
competition investigation AT.39740-Google - Report for Germany
http://www.bui.haw-hamburg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/lewandowski/google-reports/Google_Online_Survey_DE.pdf

Total number of clicks:
1000
Number of clicks on
shopping results and links
to rival offerings: 620
Most of the clicks were on
organic results and Google
Shopping results (79.8%).
Google’s second proposal (version a)
418 clicks (41.8%)
380 clicks (38%)
202 clicks (20.2%)
0 clicks (0%)

Google’s second proposal (version b)

Total number of clicks:
1000
Number of clicks on
shopping results and links
to rival offerings: 589
Most of the clicks were on
organic results and Google
Shopping results (83.4%).
Google’s second proposal (version b)
423 clicks (42.3%)
411 clicks (41.1%)
166 clicks (16.6%)
0 clicks (0%)

http://searchengineland.com/figz/wp-content/seloads/2014/03/google-shopping-panel-nest1.jpg

Interplay between search engines and their users
• Problems arising from
– Users not being aware of the possibilities search engines offer
– Users not knowing how search engines work
– Users not knowing about search engines’ business models
• Problems arising from the market dominance of one search engine
– Influence of the results presentation
– Influence of search engine optimization
– Collection and tracking of user data
à On the one hand, we have to increase users’ information literacy. On the
other hand, we need to increase diversity on the search market

3. Alternative search engines

The simple answer: There is no perfect search engine
• Web Indexing
– New, changed, deleted document
– “Holy grail” of keeping the index complete and current
Risvik, K. M., & Michelsen, R. (2002). Search engines and web dynamics. Computer Networks, 39(3), 289–302.

Freshness of Web search engines
(see Lewandowski, Wahlig & Meyer-Bautor, 2006; Lewandowski, 2008)

Why is one search engine not enough?
• No one search engine covers the whole of the Web
– Index size and index freshness
– Integration of Facebook content in Bing; Google+ content in Google
• We need more than one search engine to ensure that a broad range of
opinions are represented in the search market.
• Users should have the choice between different worldviews which originate
as a product of algorithm-based search result generation
• Ideology-free search algorithms are simply not possible

Alternative Search Engines
• What constitutes an “alternative search engine”?
– All search engines that are not Google (e.g., Bing)
– Meta-search engines (e.g., Dogpile, Metager)
– Search engines which explicitly position themselves as an alternative to Google
through a regional approach (e.g., Seekport)
– New approaches to search / “Real alternatives”: Alternative approaches to
gathering and representing web content
à Only a few noteworthy alternatives: mainly Bing, but some to watch
à Yandex
à Duck Duck Go

Economic perspective
• Only the largest internet companies are able to afford large indexes.
• Microsoft is the only company besides Google to possess a comprehensive
search engine index.
• Yahoo gave up on its own index several years ago
• It appears as though operating a dedicated index is attractive to practically
no one — and there are hardly any candidates with the necessary financial
resources in any case

Vision
• “An index of the web that can be accessed at fair conditions for
everyone”
– “Everyone” means that anyone who is interested can access the index.
– “Fair conditions” does not mean that access to the index must be free of
charge for everyone. A certain number of document requests per day
should be available at no cost in order to promote non-profit projects.
– “Access” to the index can be defined as the ability to automatically
query the index with ease.
– The concept “index of the web” is intended to cover as much of the web
as possible

4. Conclusion

#1
The current market dominance of Google
leads to only one of many possible views on
the Web’s information.

#2 The market failed in establishing
alternatives to Google.

#3
Results presentation heavily influences
users’ perception of the results, and their
selection behaviour, as well.

#4
An independent index of the Web would
motivate companies, institutions, and
developers to create their own search
applications.

#5
An independent index of the Web would
enable applications we are not yet capable
of even imagining.

Thank you
Prof. Dr. Dirk Lewandowski
Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften
Hamburg
dirk.lewandowski@haw-hamburg,de
Twitter: Dirk_Lew
http://www.searchstudies.org/dirk