2004 Search Engine Predictions From SEO Professionals

[Garrett]

I wrote to all my favorite search engine optimization professionals and asked them what they think will be the future of search in 2004. Read on to see what they predict!

Greg Jarboe's 2004 Search Engine Predictions:

As for predictions for the search industry in 2004, here are three that I'll stand behind:

1. Getting visibility in Google News will become a PR priority in 2004. Google News attracted 3.4 million unique users in July 2003, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. This ranked Google News in the top 20 current events and global news sites. Google News had 2.24 million unique visitors in August, according to comScore's Media Metrix, making it the 17th most popular general news site. In 2004, both Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix will report that Google News has climbed the charts to become one of the top 10 brands or channels in its category. Not bad for a little "beta" project that was launched in September 2002.

2. Local search will explode in 2004. According to the Pew Internet Project, 63% of American adults now go online. That translates into approximately 126 million people. According to Pew, 88% of those with internet access use a search engine to find information. That translates into approximately 111 million people. This is why the cost per lead using search is $0.29 while the cost per lead using the Yellow Pages is $1.18, according to Safa Rashtchy, senior analyst at US Bancorp Piper Jaffray. As more and more marketers -- particularly at small and medium businesses -- discover this fact, they will shift a much larger share of their marketing dollars into local search.

3. Paid inclusion will become a battleground in 2004. In January 2004, Yahoo is expected to replace Google with Inktomi to power its main search results. Inktomi has a paid inclusion program, which is being combined with the paid inclusion programs of AltaVista and FAST and will be sold by Overture through resellers like Marketleap and Position Technologies. In 2004, this will fuel an ongoing debate between Google, which does not support paid inclusion philosophically, and Yahoo, which does. Google will argue, "Our search results represent our editorial integrity, and we have no plans to alter our automated process, which works very well in gathering information and delivering highly relevant results." Yahoo will argue, "Paid inclusion maximizes your reach by including pages that otherwise might not be crawled." The debate will become heated and watched closely by Microsoft, which plans to build its own crawler-based search engine. The winner will be determined when Microsoft announces which approach it believes provides the most relevant results. This won't happen until late 2004 or early 2005.

Greg Jarboe
President and co-founder
SEO-PR
www.seo-pr.com

[Garrett]

Google 1: I think that the other shoe has not fallen and that while the initial Google cleaning has somewhat stabilized in the 20% of the high traffic sites adjusted, I think that the remaining adjustment could be traumatic.

Google 2: There will be an IPO, followed by acquisitions, mostly for emerging technology firms in linguistics, foreign markets, and geo-targeting. This will distract and delay technology implementations in some areas but they will retain market share.

Google 3: Froogle will become more integrated into the search results where the search phrase is a specific brand name, but even this will become geo-targeted.

Google 4: There will be a big push to get Google onto cell phones and PDA's.

Google 5: Look for increased partnership issues: HotBot, Ask.com, and Time-Warner properties.

Yahoo! 1: Yahoo will unveil a new Inktomi that is larger, faster, and more initially providing spotty relevancy results. It will contain a lot of spam but this will be fixed quickly.

Yahoo! 2: Yahoo will make a move to replace dmoz/ODP across all sites using any Inktomi index feeds as well as Overture results. The big win for Yahoo is that the directory is once again of value and that it will be used.

Yahoo! 3: Trusted feeds will be better controlled, but their results will be given a ranking boost in the non-sponsored area in apparent violation of FTC guidelines. Expect some legal issues here.

Yahoo! 4: Inktomi will have a new algorithm and while it will have some relevancy wins, it will likewise have some failures. Overall it edges up on the "I like the results" scale by the end of 1Q04.

Yahoo! 5: Big winner in geo-targeting area.

MSN 0: Expect nothing in the first six months for web search, and expect a lot at year end. Microsoft has patience, and they can wait as long as it takes.

Other players become less important if they do not play ball with Yahoo! or Google.

The SES conference breaks 3,000 attendee level in San Jose in August. The major news will be integrated and balanced organic/PPC projects that are self-correcting and geo-targeted, with a major focus on cost containment and fraud detection/prevention. A major new player will enter the search market (perhaps IBM).

Bruce Clay
www.BruceClay.com

[Garrett]

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

[Garrett]

1. Yahoo integrates its purchases of Overture, Inktomi, AltaVista from its buying spree in 2003 in an attempt to become a true competitor to the ailing (Florida ravaged) Google. First attempts look something like AskJeeves with 15 paid results dominating the screen, both top and bottom and right side of the SERP's. Then they realize that people want more organic (free, non-sponsored) search results and drop back to the simple Google-like screen for search with Inktomi results. But then the Overture results go to a new 250x800 skyscraper box incorporating flash based blinking, spinning borders on the left side of the screen. Every remaining search engine not already owned by Yahoo will be purchased by Yahoo, including Google (see prediction #3).

2. MSN officially launches MSN search based on their own technology (mid to late 2004). After some AskJeeves-like attempts to show paid results for the majority of the SERP screen real estate, they realize nobody trusts this model and decide to go to a Google-like spare screen with only Overture results on the right and two paid results clearly labled at the top of the page. Since dropping Looksmart paid results in January, they announce they've been developing their own PPC engine and will spend 6 billion dollars in developing it over the next ten years, incorporating search into the Longhorn operating system - delayed again year-end to make security upgrades.

3. Google's IPO fizzles after the new non-relevant search results cause searchers to stop using them entirely. When they announce they've gone back to the pre-Florida algorithm, they gain back their die-hard fans. But it seems like too little, too late for most of the remaining public. Then suddenly open source search engine "Nutch" launches a massive campaign to become the Google replacement. Nutch.com is an overnight success and becomes the new worldwide favorite. Yahoo makes a buyout offer for Nutch and MSN announces they'll develop their own . . . oops, not open source - it'll incorporate .Net, be called .Netch and will be tied to Longhorn. MSN buys Google data centers and hardware at firesale prices after hiring the star staff right before a Google Bankruptcy is announced.

Mike Banks Valentine
http://SearchEngineOptimism.com
http://SEOptimism.com

[Garrett]

Jill Whalen's Predictions

If you want one prediction, it would be that professional copywriting will be more important than ever this year in terms of gaining high rankings.

It's already clear with Google's new update that semantics are playing a bigger part in what ranks highly; they will only get more important.

Copywriters should be learning how to write for the search engines, and SEOs should move away from trying to write or edit their client's copy.

Lists of keywords separated by a comma and stuck at the top of the page is finally going to go the way of the dinosaur!

Hope that helps!

Jill Whalen
http://www.highrankings.com


Daria Goetsch's Predictions

MSN and Yahoo! will challenge Google for top search engine. MSN is working on creating their own search engine. Yahoo! owns Inktomi, and with the purchase of Overture, also owns AlltheWeb and AltaVista. This sets the stage for quite a search engine war in 2004.

Search Engine Watch:
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/2234821
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3104441

Speculation is that Google will go IPO at some time in the future. MSN is dropping LookSmart as their primary results in 2004, which was the major reason to be listed in LookSmart. Inktomi is growing in importance. There is the possibility of Google results being dropped from Yahoo! as their primary results and being replaced by Inktomi. Be sure you have some of your main pages listed in Inktomi for the new year.


Happy Holidays!

Daria Goetsch
Search Innovation
http://www.searchinnovation.com


Robin Nobles's Predictions

I believe we'll see Yahoo!, and possibly Microsoft, giving Google a run for its money. We won't be putting all of our eggs in one basket (Google) like we have during the past months/year.

I believe we'll see a lot of consolidation of pay inclusion programs, which will be nice. I'm such a firm believer in pay inclusion.

Search engine optimization is here to stay -- even more important now than in the past. It's much more difficult to keep up with all of the changes and buy outs, etc. The truly devoted SEO's will have it made!

Robin Nobles
www.academywebspecialists.com


Scottie Claiborne's Predictions

I predict we will see a shift from professionals who strictly do Search Engine Optimization into more "holistic" web marketing approaches including usability and copywriting, link building from a viewpoint of driving traffic, and PPC. There aren't any simple formulas to increase rankings and traffic anymore- it's going to take more creativity and effort to do online marketing well.

Scottie Claiborne
http://www.rightclickwebs.com/

[Garrett]

1. Yahoo will switch to Inktomi as their primary web search results, early in 2004. Some time during the year, they will begin to offer "directory search" results again. Altavista's multimedia search will be integrated with Yahoo search. Web search usgae will decline at Yahoo, as their users get distracted by cool new online games and annoying "fly in" advertisements.

2. MSN will not roll out their own search engine in 2004. They'll continue to use Inktomi and Overture, both of which generate revenue. Microsoft's "focus on search technology" will first manifest itself in enterprise search products, and possibly not until the release of their next operating system, the "Longhorn" OS. They will recognize that the big problem isn't searching the web, it's searching your own network. When they do roll out their own search engine, it will be part of their master plan to have Microsoft Office replace HTML.

3. Google will continue to release new search products. These will be "visible" tabs, like the existing search offerings, but will also be seamlessly integrated into the primary search results. The Google API and Froogle will both finally come out of beta, but "Google Catalogs" will remain in beta testing until they finally drop it some time in 2007. Google will keep the same basic look and feel, but by year's end their users will be screaming for a better interface.

4. Localized search will finally begin to appear in more places, but advertisers and users will be disappointed with the results. In spite of early difficulties, advertising money will continue to flow into local search.

5. SEO Research Labs' revenues will grow at over 10,000% in 2004, as more web designers incorporate search engine strategy into their work, and SEO/SEM consultants all scream for "someone else" to do the tedious work of keyword research. SEO Research Labs will leverage the upcoming Wordtracker API to offer "enhanced access" to Wordtracker. Wordtracker's revenues will soar, but nobody will actually use their website any more.

6. eBay will become a top product search portal as Americans finally learn to haggle, and "eBay optimization" will become the hot new specialization for SEO/SEM consultants.

7. Google Print's successful launch will lead to a wave of keyword-stuffing in books, and the most common name for Chapter One of romance novels will be "breast, breasts | Chapter One Breasts"

Dan Thies, SEO Research Labs
http://www.seoresearchlabs.com

[geoffreygag]

Google will continue to address local searches within the U.S. and abroad.

Google will also localize searches internationally on a per country basis. Sensitivity to multilingual characters will play a big role.

[jimmack]

I agree with almost everything that everyone has said except on a few minor points but eveyone has their own opinion.

I think this year everyone is going to see more changes in Google on how they will penalize sites for things that are getting to be to abused and they are getting noticed.

A example would be lets say your url is www.123.com and if you type in www.123.com/robot.txt it is your webpage again except it is not in html form it is uploaded and your html is copied into a robots txt file.

These are the kind of things they are trying to catch and for good reason they are making sure they are the best SE out there and they plan to stay that way.

I think in the next few years what everyone will see is two sides of the SE coin sort of speak there will be Google and all the SE it feeds on one side.

And on the other side there will be all the rest there is no question it is leading to this also I think the free submission's that we all enjoy now will be a thing of the past in the next few years.

I am not saying that good rankings in the search engines are not important but the truth is with good viral marketing combined with a good link exchange strategy this brings me more traffic than any search engine.

But as all successfull advertising companys that market on the internet today will tell you different businesses require different types of advertising and the search engines know this and are adjusting for it look at Google adwords and all the others.

I think we will see many different types of advertising available from Google in the future.

And as far as Yahoo and MSN, Google better look out because both MSN and Yahoo have the money and resources to turn things around.

Yes it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years.

James Mackinlay
JRM Website Marketing

[hehodp]

"Yahoo! 2: Yahoo will make a move to replace dmoz/ODP across all sites using any Inktomi index feeds as well as Overture results. The big win for Yahoo is that the directory is once again of value and that it will be used."

I hope you realize they are 2 different directories and not related in the slightest bit. One is paid and one isn't, each has its own guidelines and way of doing things.

[mythman]

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 agree with that. Call me 'Child of the 80s,' but I hope we (search-engines) can all be "one big happy search-engine." The individual SE-companies can do what they wish - advertise, buy out the browsers, etc. - but it all comes down to the people. (Remember them? People? ... I know, 'it sounds soooo "ancient-history!" but there they are anyway.) Exactly how the SE-companies turn out on that - unless they do band together - depends largely on the purposes for which people use the Internet. Read on.


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


Here I recall the reasonings behind both types of ad: Search-Engine-Listings are given for those who wish to find the product/service listed; Banner-Ads are given for those who catch a picture-of- and/or blurb-about-a product or service - regardless of whether or not they wish to find anything. Therefore Shari's prediction is one about consumer-evolution - from questing-takers to cruising-catchers.

[TrafficProducer]

Google's not the only search engine!

OK it's one of the Major respected players but remenber not to put all your eggs in one basket.

With over 3,307,998,701 pages they're bound to be a few Ranking errors.

With this number of people wanting Traffic we can't always expect to be the top listing. Can we?


Notes: (28 Sept 2003) Google state that they have 3,307,998,701 web pages and receives more than 200 million search queries a day, more than half of which come from outside the United States. Peak traffic hours to Google.com are between 6 a.m. and noon PST, when more than 2,000 search queries are answered a second. So you could estimate the odds of any site being found. These odds depend on your site content and the Keywords/Phrases people searching on at any particular time. Other search engines have different numbers of websites and people using that search engine. Some Search Engines feed their results into other Search Engines.

Notes: On most Search Engines Paid for listings distort these odds and the chances of sites being found. Therefore; a good listing of any website does not indicate a link to a good website.
http://www.solutions.ukdots.com/advertising_methods.html

....

[websitepromoter]

It seems very interesting in reading these comments that "Yahoo is doing this.." and "MSN is doing something else...".

It almost sounds like Google has stopped making any changes to make it's service better. I doubt that very much. It sounds more like wishful thinking from those trying to catch Google's sucess.

Franklyn

http://www.woodfloorist.com

[batukaru]

Hi
I the new bie here /...
nice comment :)
That will meant to all the search engine may rebuild
their result.
that all I can say more

[manawadia]

Hello Everyone,

I feel there is a need of a complete desktop search engine. Like me most users keep filing / piling information on computer. At times when information storage is huge it is difficult to retrive it as to forget (its location) is human. Do anyone of us know something really like this exists? I mean any technology that search & bring forth your demand scanning through complete computer from desktop itself.

[Mel]

Have you tried the search function in
Windows?

I use it several times a week and usually find what I am looking for.

[bossmode]

How do you know that he uses windows?

[Mel]

I don't thats why I asked the question.