A new Forrester Research report argues that 's dominance will be diluted as and gain strength in the search industry.
"Google has seen tremendous growth in terms of consumer use and paid search ad revenues. And although it continues to be the most innovative search company out there Google can't be everything to everyone," Forrester principal analyst Charlene Li said.
The report says that while Google has a strong following among web surfers, its users still visit other portal sites quite frequently.
Forrester says this trend will increase as portal competitors MSN and Yahoo! improve and promote their own searching to their loyal users by placing search boxes near high-traffic features like Hotmail on MSN and Yahoo! Mail on Yahoo!.
In addition, Forrester says that Google's biggest technology advantage, its PageRank algorithms, will become less of an advantage as the internet moves away from hypertext information to incorporate new types of content, such as databases and executables, which require a different type of search.
Forrester says that Google will win only one of the three search battles ahead. It says that on top of maintaining its position as a general search service, it will become the dominant pay-for-performance ad network, delivering the biggest and best audience through its network of publishers, which includes iVillage and NYTimes.com.
Forrester says Microsoft will emerge as the leader in integrating structured desktop search, powered by its newest version of Windows, which due out in late 2005. Yahoo! will win the portal battle by extending its enhanced search throughout its network, creating a satisfying customer experience.
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