Strengths

1. Technology Infrastructure

Google provides services that would not be possible without their infrastructure, which is what makes Google special. Other companies cannot compare or rival Google because the competitor would have to spend billions of dollars building a database that is as technically advanced as well as eco-friendly as Google’s. This gives Google a stable competitive advantage in whatever market they wish to pursue. Basically, their money and infrastructure give them an advantage.

2. Innovative Services

Another strength would have to be that Google is very innovative in everything they offer. They offer over 40 different Google Services for example; Gmail, Blogger, Google Images, Google News, Google Chrome, even Google phones. They even acquired other companies expanding their services even more, for example Youtube. Google is seen as a one stop kind of website. You can literally almost do anything on google.com now. And Google offers these services to its consumers with no cost. Competitors can’t offer the same one stop website as Google. This is a big advantage for Google but Google has to keep the innovation going in order to sustain.

3.   Market Share

Google’s last strength is market share. Comscore is a company that specializes in technology monitoring. They issue monthly press releases on market share. According to Comscore’s October report, Google Search led search market in October with 66.9 percent followed by Microsoft Sites with 16 percent and Yahoo! with 12.2 percent. (http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2012/11/comScore_Releases_October_2012_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings) Google has had this lead in market share for a long time now but Google Search isn’t the only market that Google dominates.

         121.3 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones in 2011. And Google’s Andriod smartphone platform was on over half of those smartphones. Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 53.6 percent, while Apple’s share increased 0.9 percentage points to 34.3 percent. RIM ranked third with 7.8 percent share, followed by Microsoft (3.2 percent). (http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2012/11/comScore_Reports_October_2012_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share) This shows Google’s ability to be innovative and sustainable. Because so many people use Google, it has become more than a household name. In fact, the word “Google” has even become noun as people often say “I’ll just Google it.” This is not only good for Google’s brand, but it also gives Google an edge for any new products or services they wish to launch. Customer loyalty also plays a role because consumers using Google’s services are less likely to try other competitors since they may feel comfortable using and understanding Google’s products such as their search engine or Android operating system.

Weaknesses

 1. International Appeal 

In North America and some parts of Europe, Google is still the choice of search engine but venture to communist countries like Russia and China and Google is the bottom choice of search engine. Google’s main weakness is the company’s inability to have international control over the search engine market. Google is constantly being sued by the Chinese because of the different copyright laws China has. And with China’s market booming it makes Chinese search engine, Baidu, an international force to be reckoned with.

 2. Facebook

Facebook is a social networking company that is booming today. Millions of people sign on to Facebook everyday to connect to their friends online. So why is Facebook one of the biggest weaknesses of Google? Advertisements. Google is known to have Ads that are similar to what you search. Facebook has that as well. Facebook has stolen much of the ads from Google and put it on their site. Ads is how Google search makes money. If they lose ads they lose a lot of money.