Time To Rate Last Year's Search Engine Predictions

Written by Kalena Jordan


Those of you who are long time subscribers to our newsletter The Search Light will remember my article from way back in December 2001 titled Search Engine Predictions for 2002.

It's time to take a look at that article andrepparttar grand predictions I made forrepparttar 120752 search industry to determine whether I'm a "Nostradamus" or a "NoSuchLuckus".

Here were my personal predictions for 2002:

1. Increase in Pay For Performance (PFP) Options

My first prediction forrepparttar 120753 year 2002 related to pay for performance options: "I see this trend increasing, withrepparttar 120754 major engines and directories expanding onrepparttar 120755 range of PFP options they provide, whether in-house or outsourced".

Looks like I was right onrepparttar 120756 money with this one. Byrepparttar 120757 end of 2002, all but one ofrepparttar 120758 major search engines and directories had a pay for performance option available. Paid inclusion services in particular proved to be a popular addition to search engines in 2002, with Lycos, FAST / AllTheWeb and Ask Jeeves / Teoma each introducing a paid inclusion product forrepparttar 120759 first time. Pay per click services also gained in popularity in 2002, with Google introducing their AdWords Select Pay Per Click product in February 2002 (that recently!) and Overture spreading their market reach via major partnerships with AOL Europe in January, MSN in February and September, InfoSeek in March, Yahoo in April, CNET and AltaVista in May, Lycos Europe in June, Yahoo Japan in November, CNN and Freeserve in December.

The popularity of Google's AdWords grew quickly throughoutrepparttar 120760 year, with AdWords becoming a major competitor to Overture, helped along by new partnerships with Earthlink in February, AOL in May, Ask Jeeves / Teoma and AT&T in July, InfoSpace in September and Yahoo Japan in November. In fact, AdWords became such a threat to Overture that they filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google in April 2002. I believerepparttar 120761 outcome is still pending on that one. Smaller PPC engines began to gain more market share in 2002, with eSpotting, FindWhat, Kanoodle and Ah-Ha each finding a market niche.

And who could forget LookSmart's disastrous entry torepparttar 120762 realm of pay per click in April 2002? The deceptive nature of LookSmart's announcement and their decision to force existing Express Directory Submission customers to rollover intorepparttar 120763 new PPC system instead of "grandfathering" their listings demonstrated a complete lack of market understanding and for some, forever etchedrepparttar 120764 LookSmart brand withrepparttar 120765 word "untrustworthy". It seems LookSmart are still paying for their mistake months later, with a reduced market share and a devastated reputation.

As predicted, search engine optimizers have had to embrace this trend towards Pay for Performance and integrate it within their traditional site optimization services in order to offer clients balanced, measurable and successful search engine marketing campaigns. As a result,repparttar 120766 term SEO has become increasingly eroded byrepparttar 120767 more logical term SEM (Search Engine Marketer).

Score: Nostradamus

2. Increase in Paid Submissions

My original article predicted: "I believe we'll see other engines and directories introduce a fee for submission to their commercial categories. I think Google could berepparttar 120768 first of these".

Whilerepparttar 120769 fairly new JoeAnt and GoGuides directories both introduced paid submission services late in 2002, they don't really counteractrepparttar 120770 fact that LookSmart dropped their directory submission option in favor of PPC and (thankfully), Google have refrained from introducing a Paid Submission service. So much for THAT prediction! Score: NoSuchLuckus

>> 3. Crackdown on Spammers

My prediction here was: "With engines like Google leadingrepparttar 120771 way inrepparttar 120772 crackdown on search engine spammers, other engines should follow suit in 2002. As a result, there should be far less spammers and more relevant results acrossrepparttar 120773 search engines by this time next year."

Other search engines have indeed followed Google's lead against spam in 2002, by introducing more sophisticated search algorithms, (such as AltaVista's revamped algorithm consisting of 100+ ranking determining factors), by incorporating more spam filtration methods (such as those capable of detecting invisible text and hidden links), by providing spam reporting facilities and by boosting site relevancy factors such as link popularity when measuring sites against search queries.

Google still leadsrepparttar 120774 War Against Spam, with their dreaded PageRank site penalty scheme and their crystal clear anti-spam stance publicized via their Webmaster Guidelines. The result has been a victory for searchers - more relevant searches, less bacon and ham. Even those search engines and directories renowned for providing irrelevant results recognized what Google had known for years:repparttar 120775 need to keep searchers satisfied. Yahoo in particular got back to basics byrepparttar 120776 end of 2002, partnering with Google to combine Google search results with their own directory listings instead of serving them up separately.

Score: Nostradamus

4. Growth ofrepparttar 120777 SEO Industry

Back then I said: "Withrepparttar 120778 importance of search engines finally sinking in,repparttar 120779 need for quality SEO services is booming inrepparttar 120780 U.S. andrepparttar 120781 U.K. I predict this solid demand will continue in 2002, especially in newly developing markets such as Australia/New Zealand and Europe".

No longer a niche market, SEO/SEM has indeed become mainstream overrepparttar 120782 past 12 months and is now recognized as a vital part ofrepparttar 120783 marketing mix in bothrepparttar 120784 U.S. andrepparttar 120785 U.K. Thankfully, search engine marketing has also become increasingly in demand in European, Asian and Australasian markets with scores of new specialist SEM firms springing up regularly and more media coverage than ever before.

The Search Engine Soap Opera

Written by Kalena Jordan


The history of search engines is a bit likerepparttar plot of a soap opera. You know - Bo finds Hope, Bo loses Hope, Bo finds Hope again only to discover it's actually Hope's long lost evil twin Princess Gina and so on.

Just likerepparttar 120751 TV soaps,repparttar 120752 search industry has a strange and illogical history. We started with a particular cast of search engines, new ones soon rose up and tried to usurp market share fromrepparttar 120753 originals, some engines jumped into bed with each other, some ofrepparttar 120754 well known characters died or were killed off byrepparttar 120755 newcomers, "good" engines decide to turn "evil" inrepparttar 120756 grab for market share, new industry darlings were born and so on.

Those of us who have been watching this particular soap opera forrepparttar 120757 past few years are quite addicted to allrepparttar 120758 plot twists and turns. The thing is, search engines seem to have finally come full circle. Most started up originally with a simple premise: to provide a useful service to persons surfingrepparttar 120759 Internet; a way to searchrepparttar 120760 millions of web sites and find specific, relevant information, 24 hours a day.

However once a few key players became heavily trafficked, search engines became viable advertising vehicles, attracting mega bucks from companies willing to pay them forrepparttar 120761 privilege of displaying banner ads torepparttar 120762 significant number of eyeballs viewing their sites on a daily basis. Soon everyone wanted in onrepparttar 120763 act. New search engines developed overnight, driven mainly by profiteers, hungry for their piece ofrepparttar 120764 dot com boom. The "Who's Gotrepparttar 120765 Biggest Index" game began andrepparttar 120766 searching public began to demand more relevancy and fresher results. Under pressure from over-inflated company valuations,repparttar 120767 Dot Com bubble soon burst and everyone was left covered withrepparttar 120768 sticky mess of financial accountability.

Meanwhile, savvy webmasters had begun to study how search engines worked in order to understand how to structure their web site code to improve their ranking for target search queries. A whole new industry developed from this activity: search engine optimization. Webmasters who didn't haverepparttar 120769 time or inclination to learn search engine optimization techniques simply paid others who did. Popular directories such as Yahoo! and LookSmart took advantage of consumer demand for listings by introducingrepparttar 120770 first paid submission services. Industry players took note ofrepparttar 120771 developments and introduced commercial search engines where web site owners could simply pay their way torepparttar 120772 top ofrepparttar 120773 rankings rather than rely on ranking algorithms - voila! -repparttar 120774 first pay per click search engines were born.

It wasn't long before smaller search engines and directories followedrepparttar 120775 lead set byrepparttar 120776 larger directories and introduced services to assist webmasters to ensure a place for their sites inrepparttar 120777 search listings - either via a third party partnership with pay per click search engines, or by introducing a new guaranteed indexing service which became widely referred to as Paid Inclusion. Soon it seemed everyone was partnering with everyone else in order to get their cut ofrepparttar 120778 deals being done. Some search engines were cannibalized by others or bought out by inexperienced companies and sacrificed atrepparttar 120779 altar of mis-management. Search veterans left cash poor byrepparttar 120780 dot com bust, or unable to cope withrepparttar 120781 competition, fell byrepparttar 120782 wayside.

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