MarketResearch.com: "Search Engines and Portals - US" by Mintel International Group Ltd. May 2005.

M2 PRESSWIRE-25 May 2005-MarketResearch.com: MarketResearch.com: "Search Engines and Portals - US" by Mintel International Group Ltd. May 2005(C)1994-2005 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

RDATE:24052005

MarketResearch.com announces the addition of a new report titled "Search Engines and Portals - US" (http://www.marketresearch.com/product/display.asp?productid=1095865) to its website.

The advent of search engine technology grew alongside the rapid expansion of the Internet from the 1990s onward. The number of residential Internet connections in the US will have quadrupled from 21.8 million in 1997 to an estimated 90+ million in 2005. By 2005, the proportion of those with broadband access compared to those with dial-up connections, will have grown to roughly one in three connections-and that proportion is expanding rapidly.

Faster connections mean that consumers stay connected longer and do more with the Internet. And, as the size of the Internet itself expands exponentially, the need for search engines will only increase. According to Mintel's exclusive consumer research conducted in December 2004, nearly all Internet user respondents use search engines at least occasionally and 43% of respondents claim that their current search engine usage is more frequent even than last year.

Four major search engines have emerged as leaders by offering comprehensive yet simple search tools and by promoting themselves effectively on the Internet. These leaders include Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves. InterActive Corp announced its acquisition of Ask Jeeves for $1.85 billion in stock in March 2005, demonstrating the highly dynamic nature of the marketplace. The market also includes dozens of smaller players. Google dominates; it is the leading search engine according to a variety of metrics including web traffic measures, brand recognition, consumer opinion and more-a position it strongly tries to maintain, with added pressure following the company's initial public offering in 2004. Google has become a household name to the point of becoming a verb-to "Google" something means to look up information about it on the Internet.

The four leading search engine providers have all invested in their own search technology, which basically "crawls" the web looking for content to index into their results databases. Both Google and Ask Jeeves are focused on search only, while Yahoo and MSN search engines are part of larger websites called portals, or gateways to the internet complete with big directories pointing the way to various topics such as weather, business, real estate, and many more. After a period of revitalization and beta testing (code named Sandbox), MSN launched an overhauled version of its search engine to kick off 2005. MSN also launched its own paid search technology in March 2005. However, Google continues to expand its services, including the launch of a beta email service in 2004 called Gmail. Countless smaller search providers, called meta-search engines, compete with the larger players by searching other search engines' databases for results, and promising to deliver results from multiple engines.

Search engine providers must weigh satisfying consumers-through delivering relevant results-against making money through paid placement advertisements. These sponsored results sometimes are placed ahead of other search results that may be more relevant to the consumer's search. As a result, consumers' expectations in terms of the validity of search results has driven the perception that relevant search results are difficult to obtain. Search engine providers innovate to seek ways to balance search result relevance against profit.

Competitors continuously battle to keep up with each other's technology. With massive internal research and development efforts, providers also have gained access to innovative capabilities and content through acquisition. As of March 2005, the most recent innovations have been in the area of multimedia searches and desktop search that uses the search engine to find files in one's own computer. Search engine providers have also acquired smaller companies in order to offer niche search capabilities in order to enhance their overall search offerings.

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