My search engine prediction is that we will begin to see a level playing field. In the past year, Google has completely dominated search. While this isn't a completely bad thing, because Google is a great search engine, it can be problematic for sites that get the vast majority of their traffic from Google. I almost feel as if Google gets more and more spam pages because of over-reliance on them for traffic.
Once Yahoo irons out what they are going to do with Inktomi/FAST/AltaVista and paid inclusion, and once MSN Search either comes up with their own search engine or licenses one, we can expect a more level playing field. It might be confusing at first, as all new-and-improved search engines will be. But it will get better.
And I don't think Google is going anywhere. I think Google will be with us for years to come.
I also predict that search engine advertising will slowly begin to cease being the "hot" thing. People still don't understand that search engine advertising is not too different than banner advertising. Instead of a graphic image, you have text ads. What are they doing with text ads? You can change the font, the colors, the borders. Not anything banner advertisers used to do, huh? I predict that click-through percentages will eventually become the same percentages as banners. Maybe not in 2004. But the decline is already beginning to show.
Best wishes,
Shari Thurow
Webmaster/Marketing Director
www.grantasticdesigns.com