This practice was causing such a problem that Google introduced a new attrbute for hyperlinks; nofollow. The nofollow tag can be added by webmasters to their pages to show that they do not endorse the outbound link. When a search engine spider reads the hyperlink, if it detects the nofollow attribute it will ignore the link.

It is important to note however, that all search engines treat nofollow differently. The 3 big players, Google, Yahoo! and MSN all discount links with the nofollow attribute, but in different ways. Most importantly however, is that nofollow links are not counted as part of Google PageRank.

Despite this, spammers continue to post keyword-flooded hyperlinks into blogs and forum posts. Why do they do this?

The answer is simple, they don’t get penalised.

Google have come out and said on many occasions that they don’t penalise sites for anything that your competitors could do to harm your rankings.

Let’s imagine for a second that Google and the other search engines penalised sites for putting their links all over blogs and forums. This would certainly stop spammers placing their links all over the place, but would open up a new market; link sabotage.

This would mean that your competitor’s could go around putting your link all over blogs and forums and as a result, you would be punished.

For this reason, Google don’t punish you for putting links everywhere, but through the use of the nofollow attribute have found a way to simply not count the link.

This is currently the fairest system, but is not providing any disincentive to spammers spreading their links. Having said that, it’s still the best way to solve the spamming problem.

Since that article, the much-hyped Microsoft-Yahoo! deal has fallen through (most probably for good now) and Yahoo! have signed an $800 million non-exclusive search advertising deal with Google that will see Google ads appearing in Yahoo!’s search results.

This deal basically means that Microsoft is really the only player left who can seriously have a tilt at Google. All the other players are either too small to be a genuine threat or have some vested interest in Google.

Yahoo! is now one of the latter. The problem that Yahoo! has is that by signing this deal, they have effectively conceded the search advertising war to Google, who maintain a massive market share of around 80%.

However, it’s important to note that this is not the first time that Yahoo! have outsourced to Google. Google supplied Yahoo!’s search results from 2000 to 2004 before Yahoo! engineered their own search engine. Microsoft’s MSN search was likewise outsourced for a number of years to LookSmart, Inktomi and AltaVista before they too decided to create their own engine in late 2004.

So while most consumers believe that Yahoo and MSN have been in the search game for years, and are regarded as the two ‘other players’ in the ‘Big 3,’ both have really only been producing their own search results for about four years. And now that Yahoo have gone back to Google for search engine advertising, it raises questions about whether or not even Yahoo! think they can match it with Google’s AdWords program.

Which brings us back to Microsoft as the only player who has not got some interest in Google’s success. There are a couple of signs that suggest Microsoft may be planning an assault on the Google fortress. The first is the breakaway of the MSN search engine to the Live search engine which operates on a cleaner search-oriented feel (much like Google’s) as opposed to the web portal style of MSN and Yahoo!. This move has allowed Microsoft to frame its Live search as a separate entity that is focused on search, something that Google used very early on to gain credibility.

The announcement of Microsoft’s plans to take on the realm of display advertising is another indication that Microsoft is mobilising its forces. Microsoft AdCenter, while currently no match for the AdWords juggernaut, is in a prime position to receive a makeover and move rapidly into the display advertising field.

However, if Microsoft plan to seriously take on Google they need to move quickly as Google’s acquisitions of DoubleClick, and to a lesser extent YouTube, suggest that Google is keen to move in on this new market as well.

So, whilst there is no doubt that Google is by far and away the leader in terms of market share for both search queries and advertising dollars, there are signs emerging that suggest the Microsoft giant is not ready to lose the search war just yet, although they have to be ready for a long battle if they want to pinch the crown.

Round Two – Google Knockout… but is there movement on the canvas?

So the question then becomes, can anyone topple Google? In the late 90′s Yahoo! was the number one, but Google looked at Yahoo’s weaknesses and created a cleaner search engine that supposedly delivered better search results. But can anyone do it again?

Google continue to go from strength to strength, and their reach is unrivalled. Their advertising network includes AOL, Ask.com and now Yahoo and their recent acquisitions of DoubleClick and Youtube have only broadened their market.

With the much-hyped Yahoo! and Microsoft deal falling through, and Yahoo’s subsequent search marketing deal with Google, who is left to take on the giant of search? Let’s go through the main competitors:

Yahoo!

Currently sitting in a distant second in terms of both advertising and search query share, many claim that Yahoo’s search algorithm is actually superior to Google’s. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant, as the vast majority of users have spoken with their clicks and head to Google for its clean feel. The big thing that Google has over Yahoo is the way Google is able to separate out each of its products to keep that clean feel. Yahoo pack everything they offer into one homepage, which can make it hard to identify what their primary focus is. As a result, many users wonder whether Yahoo’s search is being given the focus it deserves. Yahoo will certainly remain profitable, as they have a loyal fan base that swear by it, but I just can’t see them storming the Google fortress, particularly now they are relying on their ad network.

MSN/Live

If Yahoo is a distant second, then Microsoft’s Live Search is back an eternity in third place. Again, however, there are those out there who believe Microsoft’s search to be better, but I am a definite sceptic on this one. For Microsoft to really succeed in search they need a massive overhaul, and massive overhauls are not really Microsoft’s style. More than likely Microsoft will just let Live run its course, as it doesn’t really seem to have the desire to be number one in search, or else it probably would have put more emphasis on it’s deal with Yahoo rather than letting it slip by the wayside.

AOL, Ask, etc

The old players in the market. Most of these engines still get a decent run of traffic, but most are also relying on Google advertising deals to keep them profitable. These guys are not real challengers for the crown.

Mahalo

Mahalo is an interesting one. Mahalo is Hawaiian for thank you, and the premise behind this start-up is that it is the web’s only human-powered search engine. That is, its search results are not driven by algorithm’s but by human generated results pages. To me it seems like Wikipedia and Dogpile rolled into one, as the user is able to search all the various other engines if Mahalo does not have a page created. I don’t think the concept of a human-powered search engine can work, particularly when it comes to updating it constantly at the speed of web. Wikipedia works but I don’t see Mahalo taking off. It is useful however, if you want to search all the major search engines (and Wikipedia, Youtube, Flickr) all in one go. Other than that I don’t see it ever matching Google. Google’s algorithm’s refresh daily, which is almost impossible for a human-powered search engine to match.

Clusty

Another meta approach to search. Just like Dogpile, Clusty attempts to rank results by aggregating results from other search engines. Once generated however, Clusty clusters results together into categories of results. This is a useful tool but won’t have Google shaking.

Other Small Start-ups

Quintura, Blinkx, Powerset, Kosmix, the list goes on. All these players however, are only targeting tiny market niches, market niches that Google could quite easily swat away with one extra feature to their own search results. The other problem most of these smaller players have is they lack the resources to operate their own search algorithm’s and many of the newcomers rely on refining a Google search.

The Verdict

Here’s the problem as I see it for the other players attempting to usurp Google; all of them either rely on Google’s search is some way or are targeting niche markets that Google could themselves cover by throwing a few million at a new Google product.

Google have already done this with email. Google took a search-based approach to internet-based email and eroded Microsoft’s Hotmail monopoly in a flash, so these small niche players had better watch their back. If Microsoft can be beaten so easily, where does that leave the little guy?

But all the big players (including Yahoo thanks to this new deal) are relying on Google in some way either for search results or search advertising. All, that is, except Microsoft. Microsoft’s Live is the one major search engine out there not dependent on Google’s algorithms or advertising dollars.

Over the last few years Google has continually stripped away Microsoft’s stranglehold on all things digital, and maybe the time is right for the old dog to get angry and strike back.

Alas, however, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen…

But why then is everyone so sceptical about Microsoft’s prospects? Why is the Microsoft juggernaut all of a sudden vulnerable to this relative rookie company with big dreams? The answer is simple; Google do search better and they have the market in the palm of their hand.

Microsoft’s MSN/Live search and Yahoo’s search are just not making inroads against Google’s tried and tested simple approach. Google has a no-fuss approach to search. Their homepage is simple, results are clearly displayed and most users have faith in the Google algorithm’s ability to deliver relevant search results. Live and Yahoo! have not worked this out or refuse to blatantly copy Google’s premise.

The name Microsoft once struck fear into the hearts of all other digital companies, because it seemed that no matter how well you did something, Microsoft could throw millions at it and take your market.

But Google has changed all that. Microsoft have been trying for years now to replicate Google’s success online, but according to BRW Magazine, have only managed around 5% of US search revenue market share, compared to Google’s whopping 77%. Google has humbled the once un-toppable giant.

The secret to Google’s success is that, out of all the big search engines, they have the most conspicuous ads. Live and Yahoo! both have ads cluttering their homepages whereas Google only display ads in search results and their AdWords quality score algorithm keeps their ads fairly relevant as well. For this reason, a search results page in Google does not “feel” like an advertising billboard, which can be the case in other search engines.

So that brings us to now, where Microsoft is once again claiming that they are ready to take the mantle as the net’s premier search engine. Microsoft are currently working on capturing the display ad market, with development teams working overtime on technology for video and banner ads that display more relevant ads based on a user’s browsing patterns.

Of course Google are not going to sit back and wait for Microsoft to gain ground on them, and their recent acquisitions of DoubleClick and Youtube suggest they are already going on the offensive.

So who’s going to win? Microsoft or Google? From what I’m seing the answer is Google. Google have the market cornered and are not going to give it up without a fight.

One of the reasons I believe that Google will win (this round) is that they have quite remarkably managed to dodge the ‘big bad company’ tag. It is very common for large corporations to become disliked in the court of public opinion because they are greedy or ‘out to get us.’ It seems that no matter how big Google get, they are still liked by the public. This can probably be traced back to the way Google manages its staff, who work in more of a resort than an office. In the search engine wars, Google are the good guys whilst Microsoft are the baddies.

Microsoft will undoubtedly keep trying, they always do. Search engine advertising is too big a market for Microsoft to give in, but if this new display ad platform is once again outperformed by Google, they may have to go crawling back to Yahoo. Microsoft have already hinted that they may revisit the idea by putting the merger decision to a shareholder vote, indicating that even inside their own ranks they have doubts over their own ability to beat Google.

My gut feeling says that Microsoft and Yahoo will be together sooner rather than later. If and when this happens it is critical that they do not try and copy Google, but rather come up with a new kind of search experience, that delivers the most relevant search results (including ads) and offers more for Internet users, but I won’t be holding my breath.

Round One – Google Knockout…