Predicting future trends for web search

As the web continues to grow at a tremendous rate, the question is, can the current search engines continue to cope with the size of the web, and if not, what are the alternatives?

Looking back at the huge developments in the past 10 years, it's hard to see where the web will be in the next 10, not to mention the next 5! The rapid growth in new websites, with thousands of new sites appearing every week, is putting a strain on the search engines as their technology tries to keep up with the growth. Estimates place the coverage of the web by search engines to be no more than 40-50% of total web pages.

Even more concerning is the way that the human-edited directories are falling behind their listing of new sites or updating dead links, whilst the economic justifications of employing more people to cope with the demand seem unfeasible. As a result, many directories are now falling behind the growth of the web and, unless they focus on niche areas, are unlikely to continue successfully in the long term. In addition, many of the major search engines are facing financial challenges in maintaining a viable service for web users and as the market becomes dominated by a few search properties, the revenue from pay-per-click advertising or from developing other services will be the key to financial stability and growth.

So what might the future hold? Here are some thoughts...

• The merging of search properties into a smaller number of dominant companies (such as Yahoo, who acquired AltaVista and Alltheweb, or Ask who have taken over Teoma and Lycos) means that web users are now reliant on a few companies providing search results and consequently these companies are also competing for the largest share of the market. Google currently holds the dominant position but one that MSN and Yahoo, in particular, will challenge.
• Pay-per-click advertising has been the saviour of search over recent years, funding the massive growth of Google and also Yahoo's development. MSN now aims to join this area to benefit from the increasing number of advertisers choosing this targeted option. What this also means, however, is that the PPC market becomes more saturated and bid prices rise, so squeezing out the smaller advertiser. Consequently, the search tools will look at new ways of extending the coverage of PPC advertising to offer more opportunities for advertisers to buy listings (and for search companies to grow their revenue).
• Acquisitions are likely to continue but with the objective to extend the range of services being offered by the main search properties. Google leads this area with a series of acquisitions over recent years which has lead to tools like Picasa (for image collections) and Google Talk (for VoIP services).
• Search engines are continually examining ways of indexing websites and providing highly relevant search results. The use of link popularity is one development that has introduced a level of website evaluation as it measures the quantity and 'quality' of hypertext links being directed at a website, thus assuming the importance or popularity of the site. Personalisation is the next big step to match search results to individual user's behaviour, although this idea of the 'semantic web' is dependent on collecting data and raises issues of privacy.
• Other future techniques may be to use software that can summarise the overall 'theme' or context of a website. Such 'agent' software may help, although the effectiveness of these tools still has to be proven as a general web search tool.
• More specific subject category search tools may be a medium term answer to try and segment the sheer size of the web into more manageable chunks - such as business or travel 'vertical' search tools, or the development of local search. However, such sites still need to ensure that they have the best coverage of the websites in their field.
• The concept of personal search engines being held on individual's computers is another popular forecast for the future. Using 'intelligent agents', the software will recognise a user's specific interests and actions and then search the web and retrieve relevant information to be held on a personal profile.

Whatever solution becomes the next mainstream search tool for the web, it is without doubt that the current search tools will have to change to remain effective. It is also clear that search engine marketing will remain an essential skill, adapting websites so that they will continue to be found by whatever method the search tools of the future will operate.

At the web search workshop we keep track of search engine developments to help business websites achieve the most effective exposure that is possible, both today and tomorrow. To find out how your website can achieve a top ranking on the search engines today, please contact us for more information or to request a FREE website assessment.