In my opinon, Google has earned its place as the number 1 search engine. The geeks over at Google are bright and top notch, delivering innovative solutions like Google maps and Gmail.  Adwords was ground-breaking when it was released, it made it possible for small businesses to utilize web advertising with good control over the costs and results.

The downside is that Google may be growing into a monopoly. Google’s share of the search engine marketing continues to grow at the expense of its main competitors. Yahoo & MSN just don’t cut a good slice of the cake.

This dominance of online advertising, with the success of AdSense and the lack of alternatives, raises the possibility of a Google monopoly in online advertising.  They might end up governing the whole Internet and will have great powers to influence the success of other companies trying to make a buck from Internet users.

A company that grow too much may crumble from it’s own weight.  Recently, Cringley listed a few signs that this may already be happening:  The Next Microsoft

I’ve seen some of the signs myself. Sites I’m involved in are getting traffic from Adwords with keywords that are not in the campaign. For some reason, the Google algorithm decides that the keyword is relevant and displays the ad. The advertiser will be paying for the click, but the landing page may not at all be prepared for visitors searching for this particular keyword and no conversion is made. Stuff like this may cause the advertiser to leave Adwords and search for other options, but what if there are no alternatives?