Google Case Study

Google Case study 2

Context

In addition to being the largest search engine on planet Earth, mediating the searches of tens of billions of searches daily, Google is an innovator. All online marketers should follow Google to see the latest approaches it is trialing.

Google’s Mission

Google’s mission is encapsulated in the statement ‘to organize the world’s information ... and make it universally accessible and useful’. Google explains that it believes that the most effective, and ultimately the most profitable, way to accomplish its mission is to put the needs of its users first. Offering a high-quality user experience has led to strong word-of-mouth promotion and strong traffic growth. Putting users first is reflected in three key commitments illustrated in the Google SEC filing:

1 We will do our best to provide the most relevant and useful search results possible, independent of financial incentives. Our search results will be objective and we will not accept payment for inclusion or ranking in them.

2 We will do our best to provide the most relevant and useful advertising. Advertisements should not be an annoying interruption. If any element on a search result page is influenced by payment to us, we will make it clear to our users.

3 We will never stop working to improve our user experience, our search technology and other important areas of information organization

The range of Google services is well known:

 Google Web Search

 Movie, Music and Weather Information, News, Finance, Maps, Image, Book and Groups, Information

 Google Image Search, Google Book Search, Google Scholar, Google Base. Lets content owners submit content that they want to share on Google web sites.

 Google Webmaster Tools. Provides information to webmasters to help them enhance their understanding of how their web sites interact with the Google search engine. Content owners can submit sitemaps and geotargeting information through Google Webmaster Tools to improve search quality

 Google Co-op and Custom Search. Tailored version of the search engine.

 Google Video and YouTube Google Docs. Edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations from anywhere using a browser.

 Google Calendar, Gmail Google Reader. Google Reader is a free service that lets users subscribe to feeds and receive updates from multiple web sites in a single interface. Google Reader also allows users to share content with others, and function with many types of media and reading-styles.

 Orkut – a social network Blogger. Blogger is a web-based publishing tool that lets web users publishes blogs.

 Google Desktop. Search own local content.

 Picasa. Picasa is a free service that allows users to view, manage and share their photos.

 Google GEO – Google Maps, Earth and Local Google Checkout provides a single login for buying online. On 1 February 2008, Google began charging merchants who use Google Checkout 2% of the transaction amount plus $0.20 per transaction to the extent these fees exceed 10 times the amount they spend on AdWords advertising.

 Google Mobile, Maps, Mobile, Blogger

For 2009, Google spent around 12.8% of its revenue in research and development, an increase from less than 10% in 2007-2008.

Google revenue models

Google generated approximately 99% of its revenues in 2009 from its advertisers with the remainder from its enterprise search

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