Without doubt the future of search is being defined by Google, the unrivalled king of the search world. Here we have videos of 2 interviews - one by Google's Marissa Mayer and the second by Mike Grehan of Bruce Clay Inc. - that elaborate further on the issue. One thing becomes clear - the online search experience will never be the same again. It only will get better going by the indications. Read on.
For any person involved in search marketing, the question that is perennial in mind is how the future of search is going to evolve. It is perhaps no wonder that more eyes are riveted on Google than any other search engines, and there are reasons for that.
Many people are aware that Google is the numero uno in so far as online search activities are concerned. But how much is Google ahead of others is revealed in a recent comScore study that takes the breath away.
Google Reigns Supreme
According to comScore, in the month of August, 2007 Google accounted for 37.1 billion searches (including YouTube's video search of 5 billion) out of a total of 61 billion. That gives Google an unassailable lead with nearly 61% share of all online searches made in that month.
Yahoo comes next with 8.5 billion searches (14% share) while MSN ranks fourth with 2.1 billion searches (3.3% share). In between the two comes the Chinese language site Baidu with 3.2 billion searches (5.2% share). Korea's Naver comes fifth with 2 billion searches worldwide, almost same as MSN's.
Okay, Google is where the bigger pie of search-related marketing rests for sure. It pays therefore to know Google's mind as to where it feels the future of search is headed.
To explore what lays in store I have 2 weighty videos below. One is an interview with Marissa Mayer, the Vice President of Search Product and User Experience at Google.
Let me quickly recap what Mike and Marissa tell us about the future of search. Mike while reminiscing yesteryear's on-page techniques and networking through links seeks to convey that the time has come to consider preparing for universal search.
Here are some of his opinions:
The fundamental need of any website remains the same. It must be easily 'crawlable' by the search engine robots.
While on-page techniques and links are required, what is also important is to include images, audio podcasts, videos and the likes in the web content. As for videos his choices are YouTube and Google Video.
In not-too-distant-future mobile search is going to become very popular. And since the normal monitor-viewable pages do not usually fit in the mobile screen, one may need to build brand new websites just for mobiles.
Local search too is fast becoming relevant and popular. The possibility of including address and phone numbers in search results is proving convenient for users.
Marissa Mayer Opines
Being the VP of Google's search products, Marissa no doubt is an important person in the world of search marketing. These are a few points she expresses her opinion on:
There is an increasing stress on automation, which perhaps means that Google will automate the entire search process so as to bring in the most relevant results to the users. These may encompass not only text pages, but also videos, audios, blogs, images, books, local results and so on.
Google is mulling cross language search as a future option for its users. What one understands about this is that Google will fetch the most relevant results across all languages in response to search queries. Will not users feel inconvenienced because of unknown languages in the search results?
Google is likely to tackle this problem by providing translations of the search-result pages in the chosen language of a user.
If I'm not wrong in understanding Marissa, Google is also contemplating conversion of words spoken in videos into texts that will then qualify to be considered for inclusion in search results. If that indeed happens the day is not far when the need for optimizing spoken words too will weigh heavily on the minds of search marketers.
Conclusion
If you believed that the Internet has so much bridged the information gap between people to people and place to place that the world has become smaller, you may need to revise that opinion. The scope and future of search as set upon by Google has almost alarmingly opened up myriad possibilities that seem far-fetched even today.
But then trust Google to define your search life perhaps forever. And this for once is not an empty talk. Why?
Because as the Internet spreads far and wide to the remotest corners of the world, to the fast-catching developing countries, to more and more aspiring people, to more than 750 million people doing the searches as of now, it is the Google that is likely to walk tall in our lives defining as it is the course of the future of search.
