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Current and Future Search Trends: What the Top Internet Search Engines Are Doing
Scott Buresh (c) 2007  Medium Blue
(http://www.mediumblue.com/)

The future of search is unclear – what is clear is that change
is rapidly happening for all of the top Internet search engines.
Google as always is the frontrunner for many of these search
trends, but even little guys like Ask.com are making waves. In
this article, I will attempt to cover some of the more
interesting search trends that are occurring today with the top
Internet search engines – but I am by no means being
comprehensive about the subject. Things are changing on a
weekly, or sometimes even daily, basis, and future articles will
cover additional developments in depth.

Universal Search

In May 2007, Google – the leader among top Internet search
engines -- got people talking (again) when it rolled out its
latest search concept, Universal Search. Universal Search was
Google's attempt to create a single page of search results,
rather than separate pages for types of results, such as videos,
images, maps, and websites. When it was first introduced, many
search engine optimization firms raced around exclaiming that
this was one of those search trends that would change everything
and that new optimization rules should be created and followed
immediately.

I published an article in early 2007 in which I noted, "The
problem with Universal Search is that it can muddy the results,
and it can also introduce irrelevant results that a searcher
cannot use."[1] I also wrote, "Clearly, Universal Search will
change how an SEO campaign is run if it catches on. But this is
a real if - users' search habits are hard to change overnight,
even if you are Google and you essentially define what searching
is and how it works."[2]

And in fact, Universal Search didn't quite take off the way
Google had hoped. A post on MediaPost's Search Insider by Mark
Simon boldly states, "Universal Search will probably not be
viewed as the greatest Google fiasco since Google Video, but
it's clear that it's failed to deliver on the vaunted promises
made by Marissa Mayer back in May."[3] So will we see more of
Universal Search, or will it be quietly put to the side? Will
other top Internet search engines want to use it for themselves?
Only time will tell, but it seems like Google needs to do a lot
more work before users really warm up to it.

Personalization and Personalized Search

Personalization on the other hand seems to be one of the search
trends working very well for Google and many of the other top
Internet search engines. In an article I wrote a few months ago,
I said "The basic principle behind personalized search is
simple. When you go to Google and type in a search query, Google
stores the data. As you return to the engine, a profile of your
search habits is built up over time. With this information,
Google can understand more about your interests and serve up
more relevant search results."[4]

As it works right now, if you use a Google product (Gmail,
Google toolbar, AdWords, etc.), Google is keeping track of what
you search for and what websites you visit, and it's then
tailoring your results appropriately. Search for "bass," and
Google will know whether you mean the fish or the instrument. As
I pointed out, though, there are major issues with search trends
like personalization:

   Privacy issues that arise from personalized search are also a
   big question. The EU recently announced that it is probing
   into how long Google stores user information (this probe was
   subsequently extended to include all search engines). AOL
   recently committed a serious blunder when it released search
   data from 500,000 of its users, and it was discovered that it
   was fairly easy to identify many people by the search terms
   that they use...[5]

Yet if nobody makes a fuss about this, then it's very likely
Google – and the other top Internet search engines - will start
tracking everyone behind the scenes, whether they use a Google
product or not.

It's actually already starting – right now, the cookie Google
places on your machine (did you even know they did that?) will
expire in two years – but they won't really expire at all.
According to the official Google blog:

   In the coming months, Google will start issuing our users
   cookies that will be set to auto-expire after 2 years, while
   auto-renewing the cookies of active users during this time
   period. In other words, users who do not return to Google will
   have their cookies auto-expire after 2 years. Regular Google
   users will have their cookies auto-renew, so that their
   preferences are not lost. And, as always, all users will still
   be able to control their cookies at any time via their
   browsers.[6]

Seems it won't be long before Google knows what you're searching
for before you do.

Expanding "Sneak Peeks"

Ask, one of the smaller of the top Internet search engines, has
been using sneak peeks to entice searchers for a while now.
Searchers who use Ask.com can mouse over an icon next to many
results and see a screen shot of the website. No clicking
needed. Google, always watching for search trends, seems to have
noticed, because they've filed a patent for expanding their own
snippets.[7] Soon searchers on Google may be able to read
expanded summaries of pages, or longer clips of page text. This
tactic appeals to searchers who are now demanding more and more
information faster and faster from the top Internet search
engines, and who don't want to waste precious seconds clicking
on a link and then on the back button to find just the right
site for their needs.

Syntax Queries

When Ask was Ask Jeeves, the butler was supposed to listen to
your search queries in the form of questions and then get
answers for you. The problem was, this never worked exactly the
way it was supposed to. Instead of answering the question based
on syntax, the engine still responded to searches in the same
way others did, by analyzing the words and returning a list.
Jeeves was retired with a bit of fanfare, and the engine handles
queries in the more traditional manner for now. But all of the
top Internet search engines have continued to work on this
concept, with Google again leading the way since it has the
manpower and brainpower to do so. I expect that within the next
year, this will be one of the search trends that the engines
will want to focus on with a greater push toward answering
questions rather than just returning related results.

Speech Recognition and the Mobile Market

Speech recognition is really going to be one of the huge search
trends in the coming months and years for the top Internet
search engines. In an interview from this past summer, Peter
Norvig, director of Google Research, noted, "[Google] wanted
speech technology that could serve as an interface for phones
and also index audio text. After looking at the existing
technology, we decided to build our own. We thought that, having
the data and computational resources that we do, we could help
advance the field."[8] With speech recognition in place, one
could go to Google (or another of the top Internet search
engines) and use a microphone to ask a question aloud, or just
say some keyphrases, and get a list back immediately.

And speech recognition has the biggest benefit for top Internet
search engines when it comes to users of mobile devices. Let's
face it, as advanced as those keyboards may have gotten,
they're still a pain to use and it's time-consuming to type in
more than a few sentences. (That's y txt msgs r lk ths, u c?).
Norvig is on top of that too, noting, "In general, it looks
like things are moving more toward the mobile market, and we
thought it was important to deal with the market where you might
not have access to a keyboard or might not want to type in
search queries."[9]

More to Come

As I noted in the beginning, this is just a small sampling of
the search trends for the top Internet search engines today.
Google, Yahoo, and even Ask are all working tirelessly to get
your business and to make search easier, faster, and more
accurate. Keep checking back for future articles covering some
of the other trends and following up on the ones I've already
discussed.

References

1. http://www.mediumblue.com/newsletters/universal-search.html
2. Ibid
3. http://blogs.mediapost.com/search_insider/?p=637
4. http://www.mediumblue.com/newsletters/personalized-search.html
5. Ibid
6. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/cookies-expiring-sooner-to-improve.html
7. http://www.semclubhouse.com/on-researching-patents-and-a-new-google-patent-filing-on-expanded-snippets.html
8. http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/19050/?a=f
9. Ibid
================================================================
Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue, which was recently named
the number one search engine optimization company
(http://www.mediumblue.com/) in the world by PromotionWorld.
Scott has contributed content to many publications including
Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004),
MarketingProfs, ZDNet, Organic Rankings, WebProNews, DarwinMag,
SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue
serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific,
DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Download Medium Blue's latest exclusive whitepaper
(http://www.mediumblue.com/free-whitepaper.php), "Adding Search
to Your Marketing Mix," for more insight.
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