Search Engine Mission Statements

• May. 6, 2004

With the recent Google IPO, I have been doing a lot of speculating as to what Google will do with that money. We know that, in order to remain competitive, they have to be able to easily bankroll new initiatives. So I started to wonder just what Google would do to remain competitive and even attempt to stay ahead of the competition.

But where to start? If Google can raise anywhere between US$2 billion and US$15 billion there becomes huge potential for growth. So I had to find a way to limit my speculation.

That is when I decided to go to their website to find out what Google's mission statement is. For those who don't know, a mission statement is essentially what drives the company. It forms the foundation of what the company is and what it means. In Google's case, its mission statement is "to make the world's information universally accessible and useful."

This is a pretty broad statement, but when you consider it in the context of the purchases and changes they've made in the past two years, it makes sense. Buying Kaltix and Applied Semantics (resulting in the Florida update) was an attempt to make the results more useful. PageRank is another way Google tries to make the information displayed more relevant.

Forming a partnership with Real (to distribute the Google Toolbar with RealPlayer) is a way to make their information more accessible, so is the Google DeskBar and Gmail.

So you may be able to see that everything Google has been doing since day one is in line with their corporate mission statement. The only question remaining is: What's next for Google? Well, keeping the mission in mind, it does become somewhat easier to envision what Google is up to. I will leave that up to you to decide, right now, what you think Google may be in for.So, by now you may be wondering, what are the mission statements of other search engines, or internet portals? Well, I have them here for you:

AOL - AOL's Mission is to build a global medium as central to people's lives as the telephone or television... and even more valuable. (This is a pretty broad mission statement. My take on this is that AOL wants to do to the internet what RCA did to the television)

Yahoo! - Yahoo's mission is to be the most essential global Internet service for consumers and businesses. (Very similar to AOL: to become the most important internet service in the world; also very ambitious.)
?BR>Ask Jeeves - Ask Jeeves' mission is to deliver the most relevant answers to your everyday searches. (This is a very simple, clear mission - and it's strictly tied to search. The only one I've seen, from all the search engines, which explicitly says this.)

Altavista - AltaVista's mission is to provide access to information to the global community, and they are dedicated to setting the standard for search technology and how people find information. (Even though they are now part of the Yahoo! network, I thought it was worth mentioning. The line I like is "setting the standard for search technology. They can still do this for Yahoo! Altavista now becomes the breeding ground for new technology which then rolls over to Yahoo!)

Microsoft - Microsoft's mission: To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential. (I looked for a mission statement for MSN but couldn't find one. I would think, however, that it would contribute and align to Microsoft's overall mission which is also broad - tying an individual's potential to a computer. A stretch in my view, but a worthy challenge.)

As you can see, these different companies have similar yet diverse mission statements. I would hope that they all keep these statements in mind when planning their futures. Especially when it comes to mergers and acquisitions.

Rob Sullivan
Production Manager
Searchengineposition.com
Enquiro.com