3. The future of search means utilizing more communities and less searching. Top of funnel searches will lead consumers to networks, communities, and social sites that then fulfill future search needs, potentially replacing search engines. – Scott Fish, Director of Search
4. Search is constantly evolving, its future shaped by technology and consumer behavior. Success in search relies on a brand's ability to be proactive and consistently provide value. – Oliver Tani, Director of SEO
5. Search is still, and will continue to be, the best broad mechanism to obtain answers to questions on the planet. Search engines will continue to evolve to hold this positioning, and the key will be ever improving result relevance and usefulness. Deeper forays into authority measurement, content types and filters, broader structured content acceptance, improved utility and results (mobile/local), publisher participation (ex. taxonomy standardization), public participation (social integration), and improved targeting abilities (behavioral, demographic, psychographic) and data capture will all be part of the mix. – Mike Corak, VP Strategy
6. Visitor behavior data will increasingly drive search engine ranking algorithms as a dominant measure of content-to-keyword relevance, especially for top 10 results. Traditional on- and off-site optimization will remain a necessary prerequisite to search engine visibility, but clickthrough and visitor retention will become a necessary optimization focus to be competitive in organic search. – Gavin Francis, Technical & Analytics Specialist
So what does all this mean? The real answer is we don’t know…but what we do know is search is more than search engines, and it will continue to evolve… Even with the advances made in social media and the increased use of social networks, search is still, and will continue to be, the best broad mechanism for the public at large to obtain answers to questions quickly and effectively. How will search engines hold this positioning? With the mission of ever-improving results and relevance, search will evolve by: Bringing in new types of content, both structured content from authoritative sources and real-time content from the public at large Finding new, more relevant, ways to levy influence and authority (linking plus social votes, social authority, engagement, etc) Integrating itself deeper into content publishing, planning and execution, guiding the way for authors to structure their content for ultimate exposure Improving results, continuing to expand local targeting, and catering to mobile needs AND Being as measurable as possible, both from an activity standpoint, and from a targeting standpoint, integrating user data and behaviorI don’t think Google sees Bing/Yahoo as their biggest threat or competitor, but more so Facebook and others with strong mobile apps. Users will continue to search, but depending on what their search is for, they’ll use different platforms…Google for informational queries, Facebook for people & companies, Yelp app for restaurant recommendationsMore transactions will take place in the engines (e.g. Bing & Open Table, Google recently approve acquisition of ITA Software)Event more integration of social into search resultsUse of location services (Four Square, Facebook Places) and social review (Yelp, Tripadvisor) as search engines (looking for deals and reviews) through appsWe’ll see further personalization of results – whether logged in or not – which devalues general rankings Search results will become increasingly, if not entirely, personalized for both identified and anonymous users. For SEO as a practice, The influence of Social media network integration, official and unofficial search histories, ip-based geolocation, and visitor platform/device information will decrease the availability, reliability, and relevance of rank as a performance metric.An Increased emphasis on tracking, measurement, and analysis of site traffic and visitor behavior will be required to measure performance and inform optimization strategy and tactics.
