Recently, The Markup published a study and its results are pretty shocking. The research service was looking at the amount of screen space that Google dedicates to its own services and affiliate links in the Google Search results.
While it was always known that Google’s services and links dominate the web page mostly, but when proper research was done, it was found out that exactly how much of the screen space does Google dedicates to its own content.
The research was based on samples from 15,269 typical searches on Google which were performed through an iPhone X. The results suggested the Google dominated area in the results web page was even more than advertisements. The Google-related services and links take up almost 62.6% of the first search results screen in the research samples.
In totality for a whole long page, Google’s dominance was around 41%. While 44.8% of the first results page was given to non-Google websites, around 8.5% was dedicated to AMP pages, and only 1% was given up for ads.
As far as the placement of search results was considered, the non-Google results were found to be pushed down towards the middle and lower-middle of the page. While Google’s own results were blessed with the best places amongst the top search results. As we all know, the position and placement of the search results are extremely vital as over 70 percent users tend to click on the first five search result links only.
Furthermore, the research results suggested that Google leaves only 19.2 percent for non-Google search content, and for more than 5% of the searches in their samples, it was found that Google usurps almost 75% of space in the first screen only.
Another shocking result suggested that in one out of five searches, Google did not even bother to give place to any non-Google content on the first screen!
More than 80% of people in the entire world use Google as their ‘go-to’ search engine. But seeing the unrequited politics and monopoly that Google is playing with its rivals and non-Google websites, it is quite alarming for the users. It means that our searches and our researches are all quite sickeningly controlled by Google in a strange, frightening manner!
This also means that Google’s continuous self-promotion while delivering search results to the users must be checked and scrutinized very closely.
Read next: Google is working on a shortcut for ‘Google Lens’ in the Google app’s search bar
While it was always known that Google’s services and links dominate the web page mostly, but when proper research was done, it was found out that exactly how much of the screen space does Google dedicates to its own content.
The research was based on samples from 15,269 typical searches on Google which were performed through an iPhone X. The results suggested the Google dominated area in the results web page was even more than advertisements. The Google-related services and links take up almost 62.6% of the first search results screen in the research samples.
In totality for a whole long page, Google’s dominance was around 41%. While 44.8% of the first results page was given to non-Google websites, around 8.5% was dedicated to AMP pages, and only 1% was given up for ads.
As far as the placement of search results was considered, the non-Google results were found to be pushed down towards the middle and lower-middle of the page. While Google’s own results were blessed with the best places amongst the top search results. As we all know, the position and placement of the search results are extremely vital as over 70 percent users tend to click on the first five search result links only.
Furthermore, the research results suggested that Google leaves only 19.2 percent for non-Google search content, and for more than 5% of the searches in their samples, it was found that Google usurps almost 75% of space in the first screen only.
Another shocking result suggested that in one out of five searches, Google did not even bother to give place to any non-Google content on the first screen!
More than 80% of people in the entire world use Google as their ‘go-to’ search engine. But seeing the unrequited politics and monopoly that Google is playing with its rivals and non-Google websites, it is quite alarming for the users. It means that our searches and our researches are all quite sickeningly controlled by Google in a strange, frightening manner!
This also means that Google’s continuous self-promotion while delivering search results to the users must be checked and scrutinized very closely.
Read next: Google is working on a shortcut for ‘Google Lens’ in the Google app’s search bar
