Google Inc’s influential search engine has hit a tipping point in technology’s shift to smartphones. More search requests are now being made on mobile devices than on personal computers in the US and many other parts of the world.
The milestone announced at a digital advertising conference on Tuesday serves as another reminder of how dramatically online behavior has changed since 2007. That is when Apple Inc released the first iPhone, leading to a wave of similar devices that have made it easier for people to stay connected to the Internet wherever they go.
The upheaval has rocked PC makers and other tech firms, such as Microsoft Corp, with businesses tied to sales of desktop and laptop computers.
Google has been able to adapt better than most companies, partly because its search engine and other services are embedded in the popular Android mobile operating system, but it has not been totally unscathed.
Google’s average advertising prices have been declining for the past three-and-half years, partly because marketers so far have been unwilling to pay as much for the commercial message displayed on the smaller screens of smartphones.
However, the company says mobile advertising prices have been steadily climbing and are set to continue doing so as marketers recognize the value of being able to connect with prospective customers at the precise moment that they are looking for somewhere to eat, or comparing products on a smartphone while standing in a store.
“The future of mobile is now,” said Jerry Dischler, a Google vice president in charge of the company’s AdWords service for creating online marketing campaigns.
Besides in the US, Google’s mobile search requests are outstripping requests in nine other nations — Japan is the only other nation that Google identified.
The Mountain View, California-based company did not specify how many mobile search requests it is getting. Google processes more than 100 billion search requests worldwide each month, including queries on PCs.
As part of the mobile transition, Google last month overhauled its search-recommendation system to favor Web sites that are easier to read and load on smartphones. That change, known as “Mobilegeddon,” prodded millions of Web sites to make changes to ensure they work well on smartphones to avoid being demoted in Google’s search results.
Google has also been introducing advertising formats that tend to work better on mobile devices. For instance, rooms can now be booked within hotel advertisements, and car advertisements can now be swiped across a screen to make it easier to comparison shop.
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