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It’s Official: Google is No Longer a Verb (For Some)
It’s not often that a brand becomes so ubiquitous that the name of the company itself actually becomes a verb. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what Google accomplished back in 2006, when it was officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
The term ‘Google’ had become so synonymous with searching the web for anything (and everything) that it naturally replaced all other references to web search in most people’s lexicons. Something which – along with everything else – no doubt helped transform Google into one of the richest and most powerful tech companies of all time.
Fast forward to 2024 and you’d be forgiven for thinking very little had changed. Google still occupies a search market share of more than 90%, just as billions of people still talk about ‘Googling’ rather than searching.
But when you shift focus to Gen Z, things aren’t quite so straightforward. Many (if not most) of the younger members of society – those born between 1997 and 2012 – don’t necessarily share their older counterparts’ fixation with all things Google.
In fact, a recent study suggests that it's no longer a verb they use, having instead migrated en masse back to 'search'. Which in itself might sound like nothing more than base-level semantics, but the meaning behind this transition (or regression) does in fact carry huge significance.
Traditional Search Takes a Backseat
Technically speaking, it’s not a case of Google being comprehensively de-verbed due to the growing prevalence of popularity of one of the other major search engines. Instead, he’s the simple fact that while we (the older folks) have always seen Google as a one-stop shop for pretty much everything, Gen Z adopts a far more diverse approach to accessing information.
For example, younger people who want to find out something or dive into a new topic will typically begin with a TikTok search. If it’s more of a product-related search or something to do with TV or general entertainment, they’ll hit up Reddit to see what people are saying.
Elsewhere, those who are intent on buying something and already have a basic idea of what they want head straight to Amazon, using other customers' reviews and recommendations for guidance. Just as there is a growing tendency to head straight to the websites of major brands and retailers to learn more about them, rather than 'Googling' them and seeing what kinds of results you get.
Much of this could be seen as a natural progression towards the kinds of platforms that were and always will be engineered with younger audiences in mind. But there are also those in broader tech circles who believe that it’s more down to Google’s own evolution. Which could be seen by many as a step (or series thereof) in the wrong direction.
Googling is no longer the simple, clean, useful and helpful search engine it once was. It’s now complex, comprehensively ad-cluttered and almost completely impossible to understand. And with each new ‘enrichment’ that comes along, it gets worse.
Not that any of this means curtains for the world’s top search engine – at least not for the time being. But what he had a sure is that something even as seemingly infallible as Google is vulnerable to the winds of change – especially where the needs and expectations of younger web users are concerned.