Google Declared a Monopoly by U.S Judge: What this Means for SEO

On August 5th, following a nine-week trial, federal judge Amit Mehta officially declared Google an illegal monopoly in the search engine market, stating that the global company violates U.S. antitrust laws. This is pretty significant for the search engine powerhouse, and the fallout of this will have some serious implications. It seems things are not going too well for Google all around, especially after Google Search’s internal engineering documentation leak earlier in the year.

So, what does this all mean – what actually happened, and are there any SEO implications? We’ll clear up the Google monopoly ruling and explore what may occur because of it right here.

Google Antitrust Trial: What Happened?

United States federal authorities took on Google due to their market dominance in search engines, with the trial starting back in September 2023 and ending Monday August 5th 2024. On that date, Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google was in violation of antitrust laws and had become a search engine monopoly. Specifically, Google violates the Sherman Act Section 2, which prohibits businesses from wilfully monopolising markets and hindering competition. It was an enormous win for the DOJ (Department of Justice), and this official ruling has understandably caused quite a stir. It is also worth pointing out that Google is not the only one to come under such federal scrutiny of late, with the likes of Amazon, Apple, and Meta being ruled as monopolies in recent years.

How Did This Happen?

The Google search monopoly ruling didn’t come out of nowhere. It happened due to the violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act, which specifies that companies cannot restrict competition in a marketplace – specifically, that the company cannot actively and deliberately seek to eliminate competition. In Google’s case, the violation was in search engines and search text advertisements.

The evidence was pretty telling, with Google’s exclusivity deals playing a significant role in the ruling. Google has dominated the search engine market over the years (which you can see clearly by looking at the search engine market share), and that’s partly because of the default placements they have received after making deals worth billions of dollars with smartphone manufacturers and web browsers. Notably, it was revealed in the trial that Google paid Apple $256bn in 2021 to secure Google as the default search engine on Apple’s phones on Safari. As a result, people with those smartphones would automatically use Google rather than any other search engine. There was simply no way for competitors to get a foot in the door in the search engine market without spending billions of dollars themselves.

Regarding search text advertisements, the court agreed that Google also had a monopoly over this due to ad auction pricing being adjusted for increased revenue.

What it Means

The ultimate goal of the federal authorities is to reduce the unfair advantage of Google in the search engine market – that new search engines (or current ones) wouldn’t have to spend billions just to become competitive with Google.

What will happen going forward is all up in the air. As of yet, no solutions have been presented, and they likely will not be until a new trial, which will take place next year at the earliest. So, we cannot say what these remedies might be – but we can look at some potentials, which include Alphabet’s dissolution (Google’s parent company), the breaking up of Google, and forcing Google to share data with its competitors. It is crucial to take this with a grain of salt – we can look back on the monopoly lawsuit against Microsoft in 1998 and see that the ruling didn’t break up the company, but instead meant Microsoft had to share information and change some business practices.

Regarding Google’s response, the company’s plan is to appeal to the ruling, with their defence being that they are not a monopoly and should not be compared to other search engines like Bing but rather giant e-Commerces like Amazon. Google is adamant that its dominance comes from being a successful company. There is a chance that Google will win their appeal, but there’s also a chance they won’t – right now, it’s unclear what the future holds.

Read More: Is it Still Worth Using SEO in 2024?

SEO Implications

The DOJ lawsuit against Google naturally has digital marketers wondering what that means for SEO. If Google doesn’t have web and mobile search dominance anymore, what does that mean for generating traffic to a website? In this case, some SEO strategy adjustments must take place, and it could define a brand-new era of search engine optimisation where Google is not the powerhouse it once was.

A good step forward may be to expand your SEO strategy to include alternative search engines like Bing, which will get a significant market share if Google’s parent company Alphabet goes through dissolution. Having a more diversified digital marketing strategy to not singularly include Google means you will still boost your traffic even if Google isn’t as powerful as before. Of course, don’t go wild by changing up your strategy just yet – Google’s appeal process has not yet begun, and Google is still the most dominant search engine. There’s still plenty of traffic to gain!

Need Help with SEO?

It’s not always easy to keep up with the ever-changing waves of SEO and digital marketing. Don’t worry – that’s our job. The future of SEO is undeniably murky, with the best digital marketing strategies changing all the time, but our experts keep up to date with any new changes to ensure our clients stay on top of the game. With us, you can stay competitive through all changes, from federal judge rulings to internal document leaks. If you need help with your SEO strategy, then book a call with our team today.