UPDATE: 'Google Monopoly On Search in Illegal' US Judge on Antitrust Case

Could this be the downfall of Google? In this video, we're going to be going through the recent ruling by a U.S. judge. They found that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. Yes, this really did happen August 6, 2024. So a couple weeks back, and we're going to be discussing what this means for home service businesses. What exactly is this ruling and what you can do going forward when it comes to a search perspective. So let's get right into this. My name is Phil Risher, owner of Flash Consulting. We work with home service businesses and we make content about helping them increase their sales and keeping their schedule full. So basically in this article, they break down that the US Judge found these are the main things that Google paid $26.3 billion in 2021 alone to maintain search engine dominance. So basically, they paid, which, I mean, we all know this. Come on, they paid $21 billion or $26 billion to ensure that the search engine is the default on smartphones and browsers to keep its dominance market share. There's a reason why 90% of people go to Google when they're looking for a local service business to choose. Because on the phone, it's the default browser. And there's actually, in 2004, Microsoft settled with the Justice Department over claims that it forced Internet Explorer as a web browser on Windows users. So they were basically creating a monopoly around their specific product because it was on their laptops. So the other interesting thing about this was that in 20. This, this specific lawsuit was filed in 2020 against Google and it took four years for anything to even come of it. And also the takeaways from this were that there needs to be a quote, unquote remedy. So there was a section here about that. Yeah, the remedy phase could be lengthy, followed by potential appeals to the U.S. court of Appeals, District of Columbia, blah, blah, blah, or even 2026. So it's not like Google's dying right now. But what this does mean is that the government is cracking down on monopolies, building their business. You know, that they're the only search company that's out there. So what does this mean for home service businesses? Basically, when we look at this Flash customer journey, we use this a lot in the videos. But. But there's really a couple ways to get visibility for your business. You can do SEO, search engine optimization, which historically has been traditionally all Google stuff. Like you optimize your website so it ranks on Google. You get Google reviews on your Google business profile so that Google shows you when people go to Google and they search for things. But there's going to be other platforms out there, whether it's ChatGPT just came out with the search, it's in beta right now. ChatGPT search. In some countries, people are used the social platforms like Instagram, Facebook as a search engine as well. And there could be other search engines that come up, DuckDuckGo and all these other ones. So whatever it is, there's going to be, you know, a phase of transition eventually and maybe there won't be, who knows? But it's more about positioning your business so that you're not beholden to just Google reviews, that you also have ads going on in different places, whether that's on Google or other platforms, or even traditional yard signs, direct mail, those types of things. Owning your customer base is very important. We're going to talk about that in a sec. But creating visibility for a business in all fronts, not just, oh, we have a thousand Google reviews, so we're good. We just get leads from Google because as we all know, things change, businesses change. Next week you could get 0 review, 0 leads from Google just because they changed their algorithm of something. Which leads me to the most important part of this, which is all your customers and prospects that come through your conversion funnel, regardless of where they found out about you referrals, they saw you on Google, they saw a billboard, they saw your yard sign, they got referred to you. They all are sitting here in this big blue ocean of prospects and customers. And this is extremely important that you own your customer data. So you own their email address, you own their phone number, you have a platform where you keep all of their information. And more importantly is that you're building a lifetime relationship with them. You can't get the lifetime value without a lifetime relationship. So how can you do that? The most important thing is that you have some way of staying in contact with them. Whether that's a monthly or quarterly newsletter, whether that's a touch base, a text message or a call every six months, just checking in, hey, how's everything going? It's so important that you build these relationships because a lot of times we see businesses that have all these customers or prospects that are sitting here that they never re engage. They're always just focused on visibility, visibility, getting new customers in the funnel. And then they all just sit here and like, oh, they know about us. Yeah, they always, you know, they, they refer us, they come back in. But if you don't ask them or talk to them, they're going to forget about you. And people are going to leave. So basically what I'm getting at is that is Google dying tomorrow? No. Is it important to diversify and own your customer base? Yes. And you don't want to be beholden to Google, just like you don't want to be beholden to Angie or Home Advisor or any of these other platforms or Facebook to change their algorithm and say, hey, you're no longer going to get customers. That's why it's so important to reach out to your customers, have a good process and a good customer experience. So that way, as people come in, they, they come back in the funnel. And really what we found is that this funnel right here, conversion to retargeting, asking for referrals, keeping in contact with your customers. As this spins, this is basically like a snowball. This snowball can keep spinning. This could be a million dollar company all day long. This could be a $2 million company all day long. And this could continue to grow slowly. And then you add fuel to the fire and it keeps growing two to two and a half, two to three million, three million to three and a half. And it just keeps spinning and keeps spinning. That's why I really stress get this part tight here. So I'm curious to get your thoughts on this whole Google lawsuit. Do you think that there's any other platform out there, whether it be DuckDuckGo or ChatGPT, that could potentially take over Google? Drop a comment below. Be sure to hit like and subscribe. We'll see you in the next video.