Most entrepreneurs don’t understand that Google has been shedding search market share in EU nations.

Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig

The drop in market share comes at a time when Google’s enterprise is below siege:

  • The DoJ really useful separating Google from Chrome and Android amid a lawsuit in opposition to Alphabet. (I summarized the lawsuit and potential outcomes in Monopoly.)
  • The Justice Division runs a separate lawsuit in opposition to Google’s promoting enterprise.
  • Canada simply sued Google over anti-competitive practices in on-line advertisements.
  • ChatGPT, Perplexity & Co are rising thoughts and market share. (I lined the meteoric rise of ChatGPT in ChatGPT Search.)
  • Google faces heavy regulation within the EU from the DMA (Digital Advertising Act), which I wrote about in 2 Internets.

So, the query is two-fold: How a lot does the drop in market share matter, and what’s the driver?

The quick reply is that the drop issues greater than Alphabet may prefer to admit.

It offers oxygen to rivals and weakens the physique within the struggle in opposition to exterior brokers. Google’s income remains to be robust, however promoting market share is declining.

A mixture of regulation, rivals, and unfavorable sentiment towards Google appear accountable for the drop.

The implication is that entrepreneurs more and more want to trace and optimize for extra engines like google, however a extra fragmented enjoying discipline is also a chance for extra referral visitors from engines like google to web sites.

What Is Going On With Google?

Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig

Google’s market share over the past 10 years dipped by -5.6 pp (proportion factors) in France and -3.3 pp in Germany.

StatCounter has by no means recorded such a low share since measuring information in January 2009.

France and Germany usually are not the one ones. Most EU nations noticed Google’s market share drip within the final 5 years (cell):

  • Austria: -4.1 pp.
  • Poland: -3.1 pp.
  • Switzerland: -2.3 pp.
  • Netherlands: -2.1 pp.
  • Denmark: -1.5 pp.

Zooming additional in additionally doesn’t change issues. Google market share over the past 12 months (cell):

  • France: -4.6 pp.
  • Austria: -3.2 pp.
  • Poland: -2.4 pp.
  • Germany: -2.1 pp.
  • Switzerland: -1.3 pp.
  • Netherlands: -1.0 pp.
  • Denmark: -1.0 pp.

What’s occurring? The image turns into clearer once we have a look at when the development adjustments. There are two inflection factors: November 2018 and April 2024.

Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig

The information reveals a shift away from Google beginning round April, a month after Android and Apple launched selection screens for browsers and engines like google.

In different phrases, Google can not be the default search engine on cell and desktop gadgets. We’re beginning to see the outcomes.

Nonetheless, not all nations see a dip. Why?

Why Are Some Nations Flat?

Google’s market share isn’t down in each EU nation, e.g.:

  • Portugal.
  • Spain.
  • Italy.
  • Eire.

How come? These nations are a part of Europe, and customers see a selection display screen.

The reply is gadgets. The nations listed above misplaced market share on desktop however not cell.

Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig

This occurs all over the place within the EU. During the last 5 years, Google misplaced -2.1% market share on cell in comparison with -10% on desktop within the EU.

Why?

A giant a part of the reason being the unique distribution settlement with Apple.

Home windows is the dominant desktop working system, with +75% within the EU, largely due to its domination in company computing. MacOS has solely 15.1%.

Whereas Android (Google’s working system) additionally has the bulk market share on cell with 66.5%, Apple’s iOS has 33%.

And since Google is the default search engine on Apple gadgets by paying a $20 billion payment, its place is extra strong within the EU on cell – till the DMA compelled selection screens in March.

Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig

However what about nations that present a decline in Google’s market share earlier than March? Method earlier than!

Why Does The Dip Begin Earlier In Some Nations?

Picture Credit score: Kevin Indig

Google misplaced market share in nations like Germany and Portugal as early as November 2018. So, there have to be one thing else occurring moreover selection screens and device-specific dynamics.

Two issues occurred in 2018: First, GDPR, the European information safety regulation, got here into impact in Could 2018. Second, the EU fined Alphabet €4.34 billion for antitrust violations associated to Android’s market dominance.

Each occasions didn’t instantly lower Google’s market share however set off a interval of Google distrust that gave area to smaller rivals like DuckDuckGo and Bing.

Europeans are far more privacy-sensitive, which suggests regulatory fines and privateness legal guidelines affect shopper habits far more than the U.S.

For instance, the European privateness search engine StartPage will get 56% of searches from the EU and 21% from the U.S.

Customers go to Google much less due to privateness issues. France declared to not use Google as a default search engine for some ministries in November 2018.

Choice screens and public perception are the biggest drivers behind Google’s decline. Google sends less referral traffic to websites. So, what is the effect?

Who Wins What Google Loses?

Image Credit: Kevin Indig

The biggest winner of Google’s decline is Bing. The ever-second search engine is the biggest beneficiary of Google’s decline.

It’s very possible that ChatGPT and its close affiliation with Microsoft gave its search engine a bigger boost in Europe than originally assumed, but Bing is also the second choice in cons’ minds.

Now, these numbers are still peanuts, and search engines like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, and QWANT license search results from Bing and Google. So, you could say that Google and Bing win, after all.

However, Ecosia and QWANT are working on a joint web index to become independent from other search engines.

How much longer until DuckDuckGo and others announce their own index as well? When the alpha gets weaker, the smaller animals smell the opportunity.

Despite the decline in market share, Google’s search revenue is still growing impressively fast at its scale. Why?

  1. Market share doesn’t have to correlate with search volume or monetizable queries.
  2. There are more mobile than desktop searches, and mobile searches drop to a smaller degree.
  3. Google still dominates in other markets – the EU might not be enough to put a dent into Google’s revenue that the company couldn’t compensate.
  4. Google has been more aggressive in search monetization than the drop in market share.

Relative ad revenue growth, which is predicted to fall below 50% next year, could be a better indicator than absolute growth.

I also want to point out a caveat in the data: StatCounter gathers data by measuring referral traffic on 1.5 million sites. There is a chance that Google sending out less traffic to websites and keeping it to themselves affects the numbers.

What Are The Implications?

Google’s dropping market share in the EU, combined with potential antitrust remedies (like a forced end to the distribution agreement with Apple) and more competition, will likely fragment Search further.

In other words, we might optimize for more search engines (again). Most of them might function similarly in ranking but might need site owners to take dedicated indexing actions, such as integrating with Bing’s IndexNOW.

We’ve already dusted off our Bing Webmaster Tools when it turned out ChatGPT is using Bing results for its search feature. What’s next? Perplexity webmaster tools? Boosted by growing market share, SEO professionals should pay more attention to Bing.

Other search engines don’t have webmaster tools yet – to my surprise. What better way to foster a relationship with site owners than a portal? But with increasingly independent indices, that could become a reality soon.

Ironically, the monopoly lawsuit against Google comes just as the company gets more competition. A 1% market share of a giant like Alphabet can create a unicorn with $1.75 billion in ARR.

Browsers play a critical role in the search engine wars. The DoJ is pushing for Chrome to divest from Google, and OpenAI is working on its own browser.

In my opinion, OpenAI should buy Arc. Either way, browsers are the ultimate internet user interface and offer more user information than search engines can chew.

I want to be clear that I don’t think Google is doomed to fail. Google has all the ingredients to come out on top in the “new AI world.” The only reason it will fail is by standing in its own way.

France is ditching Google to reclaim its online independence

OpenAI Considers Taking on Google With Browser

Featured Picture: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal


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