I admit it: I’m a Google Fan

But I was just thinking about my last entry re: Become.com and how I’ve learned that search engine competition is a *Good Thing*.

When one search engine has the power to make or break your online income, or provides the majority of your traffic, haven’t we given that search engine *too much* power? Who created this monster?

We did.

I remember happily using Dogpile and Ask Jeeves and then one day I discovered Google. And I haven’t looked back since. I recommended Google to *everybody*. Friends, family, coworkers, online message boards, forums, chat rooms, everywhere. In fact I even made a web page about how to search online using Google. I was head over heels for that darn Google bot.

Now Google never returned my affections. I’m nowhere in Google for anything but the most mundane search terms (read: no money). That hurts. MSN and Yahoo and others seem to treat me well, quite nicely in fact. So why aren’t I promoting them more? Why aren’t I using them more for my searches? Why am I still saying: “Do a google for xyz”, rather than saying: “Do a search for xyz”?

I think it’s great that MSN and Yahoo and others are striving to compete with Google in a REAL way. That’s what we need, a variety of search engines that bring us a good, steady amount of visitors. Not be so reliant on the finicky Google gods, but more importantly - not so reliant on any *one* search engine.

Maybe there’ll soon be a day when online searchers are more evenly spread out across dozens of search engines. It would be a lot easier on the blood pressure wouldn’t it?

No I don’t want Google to die. But no more “Do A Google” for me. It’s back to: “Try searching over at … “