While Google takes a large share of the global search engine market, there are other search engines like Bing and Baidu that capture their share of international SEO.
The enshittification of online search? Privacy and quality of Google, Bing and Apple in coding advice
Even though currently being challenged by ChatGPT and other large-language models (LLMs), Google Search remains one of the primary means for many individuals to find information on the internet. Interestingly, the way that we retrieve information on the web has hardly changed ever since Google was established in 1998, raising concerns as to Google's dominance in search and lack of competition. If the market for search was sufficiently competitive, then we should probably see a steady increase in search quality over time as well as alternative approaches to the Google's approach to search. However, hardly any research has so far looked at search quality, which is a key facet of a competitive market, especially not over time. In this report, we conducted a relatively large-scale quantitative comparison of search quality of 1,467 search queries relating to coding advice in October 2023. We focus on coding advice because the study of general search quality is difficult, with the aim of learning more about the assessment of search quality and motivating follow-up research into this important topic. We evaluate the search quality of Google Search, Microsoft Bing, and Apple Search, with a special emphasis on Apple Search, a widely used search engine that has never been explored in previous research. For the assessment of search quality, we use two independent metrics of search quality: 1) the number of trackers on the first search result, as a measure of privacy in web search, and 2) the average rank of the first Stack Overflow search result, under the assumption that Stack Overflow gives the best coding advice. Our results suggest that the privacy of search results is higher on Bing than on Google and Apple. Similarly, the quality of coding advice -- as measured by the average rank of Stack Overflow -- was highest on Bing.
GDPR, China and data sovereignty are ultimately wins for Amazon and Google | TechCrunch
The Great Privacy Policy Email Deluge of 2018 may have finally petered out, but we are just starting to build an understanding of who the winners and
Why Google’s New AI-Saturated Search Page Will Be A Disaster
Google didn’t invent full-text search of the Internet – that honor belongs to early pioneers such as WebCrawler, Lycos and AltaVista. But for the last 25 years or so, Google has…
Google Is Building an A.I. Fence Around the Internet It Once Championed
As Google incorporates more artificial intelligence into search, people are spending more time on Google. Some website operators are crying foul.
Google Is Building an A.I. Fence Around the Internet It Once Championed
As Google incorporates more artificial intelligence into search, people are spending more time on Google. Some website operators are crying foul.
Google LLC, founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, is one of the most influential technology companies in the world. Originally developed as a search engine...
The Case Against Google (Published 2018)
Critics say the search giant is squelching competition before it begins. Should the government step in?
The State of the Web at Google I/O 2018
The web is a global treasure, and has many strengths we all enjoy. It is a distribution platform like no other, providing people around the ...
The Web Can Thrive Without Google’s Search Monopoly
Viable browsers and meaningful contributions to web standards can be sustained with more modest revenue streams, writes Alissa Cooper.
The Age of PageRank is Over
When Sergey Brin and Larry Page came up with the concept of PageRank in their seminal paper The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine (Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, Stanford University, 1998) they profoundly...
The Technical Feasibility of Divesting Google Chrome – Knight-Georgetown Institute
As the European Commission advances efforts under the Digital Markets Act to require Google to share its search data with competitors, lessons from historic antitrust remedies underscore how data access could be transformational in the AI-powered search market. While the Commission’s proposals represent a novel and comprehensive approach, key improvements to data scope and sharing frequency, privacy protections, and dispute resolution are needed. US courts and enforcers charged with implementing similar provisions should take note.
How to Measure the Relevance of Search Engines
By Nikhil Dandekar, Engineering Manager, Quora
Google Search Is Dying. What Comes Next Is Worse | The Walrus
As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing
Best Private Search Engines 2026: 6 Ranked & Compared
Brave, Startpage, DuckDuckGo, Kagi, Mojeek and Qwant compared for 2026: who tracks what, real pricing, and the one privacy step no search engine can do.
The EU's Digital Markets Act is delivering real wins for consumers in the EU, and in some cases globally. Apple and Google are opening up functionality that was previously reserved for their own products. But one glaring failure remains: browser engines on iOS. 🧵👇️ (1/23)
The Digital Markets Act Is Delivering Real Wins, But Not Yet for Browser Engines - Open Web Advocacy
open-web-advocacy.org