Since Read/Write Web is covering 10 future web trends today, I though it would be a perfect time to present my own theories on how search engines might be innovating their technologies.
- Query Intent Detection
It seems that all of the major engines have eschewed disambiguation in favor of attempting to automatically determine the query intent of a user. My guess is that more robust user data and greater analytical and data mining capacity will result in even more personalization and assumption of intent. - Search Term Pattern Analysis
I believe we're going to see a lot more tweaking of results and rankings based on how a user has conducted a series of searches from the past. I'm also guessing that advertising is going to be served and tracked to visitors based on search patterns - imagine a Google AdWords interface where you can target any searcher who's made searches for "used cars" and "seattle" in any combination of search strings over the past 30 days. Powerful stuff, right? - Vertical Growth
Ask's 3D interface is clearly the future of vertical results, and it's hard to argue that for many searches at the head of the demand curve, Ask is providing the categorically "best" SERPs because of this. With expansion into specialized results for recipes, local, news, video, images, flights and many more, I suspect that the other engines are going to try playing leapfrog, rather than catch-up. This will probably mean some very unique interfaces and a whole new set of challenges for search marketers. - Social Data Inclusion
I may have plenty of bones to pick with Scoble, but that doesn't mean his ideas are wholly without merit, though I think the directions of his predictions were pretty far off. My guess would be that data from sites like Facebook, Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Newsvine, Techmeme and others may eventually find a place in both relevancy detection (by attempting to match behavior with intent) and ranking (using temporal data & human preferences & sharing information). - Search & Discovery Suggestion
I can't look at the success of sites like StumbleUpon & Digg without thinking that search engines have to be experimenting in those fields. I imagine there are already efforts to attempt to provide "discovery" type information, searches, suggestions, etc. to users of the engine. Picture a new tab at Google that offers "search phrases you might be interested in," based on your search history and other profiling data. - Link Patterns over Link Numbers
PageRank was, without doubt, a remarkable innovation, but brute link juice may eventually fall to more sophisticated analyses of how, when and where certain sites and pages link. - Major Vertical Fracturing
Why would you run a real estate search on Yahoo! or Google when you can do it on Zillow? Why run a local search on those engines when Yelp offers so much amazing data (full disclosure - they're a client)? Could Avvo do this for the legal industry? Could Technorati (or someone else) do it for the Blogosphere? The possibility that some verticals might be stolen away in large chunks from the major engines is certainly a possibility. - Answers Over Results
Naver in Korea has shown that when done right, a collection of human answers can be preferrable to a list of relevant web pages. This could be another option for fracturing, a possibility for more vertical creep or even an opportunity for a whole different kind of engine. One thing I see fueling the potential is increased mobile search - that market is still drastically underserved. - Semantic AI
Picture a Googlebot that could not only read your pages, but "understand" what you were saying. A truly intelligent engine is probably still a decade or more away, but with every leap forward in contextual perception, the engines are going to be churning out better and better results.
I know - I've only got nine, but it's getting late and I have an investment prospectus to build. For more great reading today, I urge everyone who uses site architecture for SEO to read Dan Thies' brilliant post - How to Get More Pages Indexed with NoFollow. I'd also note that if you ever again need to convince someone to stop using or obsessing over the meta keywords tag, Danny Sullivan has a great reference point for you.
Please feel free to suggest your own ideas of how search and search engines will evolve. Who knows, maybe if you post something particularly clever, you'll wind up like our old friend John Mu :)
I think in time there won't even be a need to search for stuff. Intead, stuff will discover us.The more the search engines know about our lifestyle, our likes, dislikes, work practices et cetera, the easier it is for them to auto-aggregate stuff around us so we don't need to find things anymore...
I'm really not looking forward to the day when I get my door knocked on over twenty times a day from viagra sales people.
Not that I do regular searches for viagra...
Does anyone regularly search for viagra?
Why would you bother when you could simply check your spam folder for a dozen reputable suppliers
To be honest, 'regular' is such a loaded word.
Once a month is usually enough... for my friends....
reputable? are they?
LMAO!!
reputable? are they?
.... That's what the email says and surely a medical company wouldn't lie about something like that :P
Anyways, no time for chatting I have to follow-up on this great email offer to consolidate all my debts and there's some prince in Nigeria who has left me a million dollars, so I'll put that towards these great mortgage rates mentioned in another email I received...
ROFLMAO!! hey!! i'm going to claim that money from the prince in nigeria.. already gave him my bank account number, he's sending the money soon!
(NOT!)
if not.. i will just fly to see him using.. travelocity.travelpn.edgesuite.com
(url shouldn't work on purpose, it's a mimic phishing site)
lmao...
I think by the fact that they are spamming you, they would be deemed "not reputable"
Hey, you say that today! How about when you 70 years old, you may be sitting by the door waiting for Vigra sales person. :)
Octane ... YES!
OMG a naked midget with two hookers and a mule just knocked on my door, selling iphones, big mens clothing, and links to SEO tools. WTF?
Brain, try China, they will sell you the Great Wall...
I did a great post on Chinese sales techniques on my travel forum
https://www.travelinasia.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4782
the ever blurring of search and traditional marketing... direct mail, advertising meets search-- the realization of smart advertising?
Though there may be a very fine line between useful and overload... after all, one of the benefits of advertising that is off-target is that it is much easier to zone out than things that we might be interested in even though we aren't interested at that very moment.
Nice post, but I have to quibble a bit on your last point:
Picture a Googlebot that could not only read your pages, but "understand" what you were saying.
Ok, there is the natural language understanding angle, but aside from that, to all intents and purposes we have this kind of technology already. When you (say) use your mail app you can give it a name and it will fill in the appropriate email address. Our desktops and intranets are full of explicit data contained in some form of database.
To look to the future of the Web, I believe you have to look a little beyond traditional search. The engines of Google and co. are designed to index the content of human-readable documents. The main idea behind the Semantic Web is that if we put more machine-readable data (the same kind of information we currently find in databases) on the Web, we can use it as one huge database, without the approximations and complexity of text indexing. Of course human-readable documents will still form a significant part of the Web, but the role of Google-like engines will be diminished (or rather, they will evolve).
Regarding search, another way of saying this is that the easiest way of finding something is not to lose it in the first place...
The Semantic Web technologies provide a variety of different ways of putting data on the Web, in a form which is entirely compatible with existing Web architecture. It's a common misconception that the Semantic Web is all about metadata - metadata is certainly one kind of useful data, but any kind of data can be expressed this way. This includes traditional database data (exposed using mapping tools), data embedded in documents (microformats and GRDDL) and material produced primarily as Web data (i.e. as RDF).
There is another tie-in with Google here - their LinkRank is based on explicit linking data. Semantic Web data is expressed essentially through links, with a little extra sophistication.
See also: the LinkingOpenData project, Sweet Tools and Evolving the Link
With the heavy use of mobile technology, I'd like to see some advancements in that field. Voice-automated search would be a great innovation for mobile devices.
If that isn't looking too far ahead - you could take it one step further and personalise it based on GPS location, gender, accent... the list goes on.
While I like the idea of voice automated search for mobile users from a purely technological perspective I don't know how many people would want to use it. Most of the time when I am surfing on my mobile phone I am in line or some other crowded place and I am not sure that I would want others around me hearing what I am looking for. Can you imagine the looks you would get when searching for....nevermnd :>)
Yes...
Not to mention the embarrassment caused by not articulating a search term clearly enough - say for example, the term 'way worn'
i tried GOOG411 this weekend trying to find a number for the papa johns pizza i always order from.. after the 4th time i gave up and called t-mobile 411..i like www.google.com/m for my mobile device (T-Mobile MDA) but honestly we have a little way to go on GOOG411.
Yeah. I tried Goog411 one day and the results were simpy awful. It was unable to come close to what I was looking for.
Haha. I can just see it now. Especially embarassing when you have to repeat yourself over and over increasingly louder.
biggest problem is on the speech recognition...
"papa johns on frankston road" was... "papajohns franks road" (no results)
"papa johns frank's store" (no results) and
"papajohns pizza franks toad"
so i tried "papajohns pizza addison texas" and it gave me a listing for "papa johns pizza in denision, texas"
arrghhh!!
I couldn't agree more, while not as currently relevant domestically as in Japan, mobile search, and the convergence of all in one mobile devices is something I spend a lot of time thinking about.
Think about the amount of traction you can get for a great social media tuned page with stumble and digg, then think "if people could take the boring moments in between waiting on a bus, or waiting in line at the bank and stumble or find content just to amuse them for that moment."
I wonder how much impressions connected to big brands on this kind of content will be worth, where you can create awareness on line while the user is actually in route or just near a brick and mortar source. How will search play a role? How will we spend our spare time when this kind of access is in all of our pockets.
How tough will it be to create truly breakthrough creative when the noise ratio is so high?
Mad f'n tough, thats how tough.
Folks,
I think Igor see's what is actually happening. Remember in the first releases of Windows95 ... looking for things was called 'find', this was the beginning a large debate. You can search but not find, finding became an optimistic goal at best, so much so that it was dropped and replaced with 'search'.
Question ... is it an SE's responsibility to seek/glean meaning of web content? Or is it the contents responsibility to represent itself?
As usual, support for 'legacy' web page design practices has some 'not so new' and obvious solutions 'dragging their feet', thousands of proposals for the Semantic Web, some with real movement lately begin to solve the issues of search relevance.
The paradigm shift comes when you stop thinking about what the SE's will do to find you and start thinking about what you will do to be found. Concepts like building in Digital Nervous Systems and exchanging ontologies (rather than exchanging links) change the way we look at the questions of search vs. found in very important ways. SE's stole the heartbeat of the web ... and the web is about to take it back ...
Might I just add that I was happy to see someone give Ask a few well-merited props for how they're handling verticals now.
I know, I know--they're practically statistically insignificant compared to Google, but they're also doing a lot of things right.
ETA: Oh--and a potential #10 for your consideration: filtering and controls. I hang with a lot of mommy bloggers, home schoolers and people of various faiths. There's a loss of trust in internet filtering tools (because they mostly suck).
If engines added (and touted) parental controls and passworded content filtering, they could garner a lot of loyalty. JMO.
5. Isn´t Sproose the thing you are talking about?
You look at the whole thing from the American persepective, but all I can say is that the real internet boom is still coming, then many countries in development still don´t have an impressive number of internet users. The way newcomers are searching is completly different then SEO experts do it. It´s totally unpredictable and no keyword tool will help you there. So long tail search will stay a big topic, so does "content is the king" and linkbuilding.
One thing I´m expecting is a Flash SE which is going to be taken either from Google or Yahoo. The future trends are unpredictable too. Design is giving all those things a touch, in the 90s we´ve got very scary complicated design, now it´s simplifying to crazyness. What´s going to be next?
3. 3D search can´t be the future of the whole web, may be USA, Germany and so on, but the smaller countries don´t have the right equipment and lifestyle for that. Imagine a middleage man from Kirgistan surfing the web on an 3D interface.
6. Link patterns are a dream of SE, they allready have it (i.E. the "related:" search parameter) and much more then we know, but to make those link patterns a greater parameter than links will be hard to achieve, because computer are thanks God just computers.
I agree on vertical fracturing just because running searches within a specific vertical allows for a lot more tailoring towards the searches being made. (Zillow being a good example)
Still, the engines will likely go after this space to some degree (Google Blog search, Google Finance, Google Earth) and could still keep a leg up with their massive amounts of user behavior data. The main thing impeding them though is keeping a universal interface. If you go to Yelp, Zillow, or StumbleUpon your already refining your search in a way.
Yep, #5 Google does already in your Google Web History. If you click on "interesting items" you will see "Recent top queries related to your searches" and "Web pages related to your searches"
Nice list and all right on target I'd imagine.
I think we'll also see more and more advancements in media... image identification, voice or sound, ability to dig deeper into Flash, etc. Some of this may be far easier than other parts, but I have to imagine this is an area that simply can't be ignored, even if they have to use some form of user tagging to do it initially.
Mobile and local advancements are paramount as this is the new battle frontier, one that, as you mentioned, is already seeing strong vertical players. I think the SEs will determine if they can do it better, or how to let the vertical players do the heavy lifting and they just pick up the frontend.
It really gets divided into two overall areas... the technical backend, algo side of things, and the user front end with who can offer up the best user experience. The SEs are still going to be a major starting point for most people, so it really comes down to continuing to deliver value once the verticals and other options are discovered.
True. Google already has a box for returning image results with "faces" in its advanced image search page.
I liked your (vaguely related) points about Social Data Inclusion and Search & discovery Suggestion.
It strikes me that sites like StumbleUpon have a lot of us tagging and categorising information in a natural, useful fashion. The voting aspect serves to show the popularity/usefulness of any page of information on the web: be it on Digg, SU or Del.icio.us. As a matter of fact, Google had us doing it last year with that image tagging game they created (shame it didn't have any positive impact on Google Images though).
I suppose the inclusion of data from social networks - in different ways - might lead to a refinement of discovery tools. Yahoo could pull this off with data from del.icio.us, flickr and other tools. Google has a different but no less vast array of weapons including data from Analytics and FeedBurner as to websites that may be popular but totally off their radar (due to either social media success, site age or poor optimisation).
Both of those are the areas that I'd like to see the search engines make positive moves in. A lot of us are so invested in social networks/bookmarking that that data could be invaluable to a search engine.
It seems like with social media and emerging social platforms playing such a large role, many of us in our day to day Internet lives are already doing some of the work for the future efforts of the SE's. You could almost imagine a day where your personal activities on line digging, stumbling, delicious-ing? will have some form of related authority or quality score associated with it. for example of you comment, blog, tag, digg, stumble, etc etc topics related to tech gadgets more that the average person, then your vote should potentially count more and could actually improve the rank of the page you are referring to. In effect making the sites that you interact with actually rank better in the serps.
On snap it almost already is this way... Viva la Internet dork revolution!
The question is if providing great content fuels activity in social media that increases authority via link growth, why are we all so freaked out about paid links?
It'll be very interesting to see how the SEM industry evolves and keeps up with the technology.
Personalised search in particular strikes me as a real minefield. It's been mentioned many times before, but how do you market something that could change so dramatically from one member of your audience to the next?
While I agree that personalized search does present challenges in many industries there are plenty of verticals that are not really affected. I work in a niche area of the real estate industry and I don't see a difference in results when I am logged into my Google account than when I am not. On top of that while most in the SEO world have Google accounts and are logged in I would have to say the vast majority of searchers are not. I see it at my office where everyone uses Google but I am the only one that would see personalized results.
Obviously this will probably change as more and more users become more savvy. Innovative SEO's have a chance to actually do better with personalized search by developing campaigns that are able to target different types of personalities and preferences. It may lead to more work but it could result in even better results.
Mobile is going to be fascinating. I haven't played with it enough to know numbers yet, but I was talking to someone recently who's getting good lead generation from mobile advertising (contextual). For a mobile service...
Rand, I think all the mentioned points will come into realization with in short time, and eventually search engines will be A.I.
Igor, I know it's a little early in our relationship, but I think I love you.
Brains, thanks! It must be my Troll personality it is finally paying off!
I always figured being original and standing up for one self is the way to go. If you follow the pack you will just be dog meat for the buzers.
Hence, Igor The Troll
P.S. I like the pictures on your blog. Which one is you, the beautiful girl or the ugly dude?
I aslo like your section on how to do creative search on FG.
Both, ever seen Glen or Glenda?
Great post! I'd also invite you to read the Rising Star Dream Team Future of Search Report, created as a response to Gord Hotchkiss' Search in 2010 series:
https://blog.vortexdna.com/the-complete-future-of-search-report/
I wish I had known you were writing this one at the same time... I would have loved to have you on board! Perhaps for the next iteration?
Obviously the sky's the limit when it comes to potential search engine innovations - but personally, I'd rather have them spend the bulk of their time returning better results right now.
While this might relate to point #1, I find that even when a search engine knows exactly what I'm looking for, it still doesn't always return the most relevant results. The recent post about competition that just won't budge is more than enough proof of this.
There's nothing magical or cutting-edge about improving results right as we speak, not 10 years from now. For instance, it's pretty obvious to everyone that Google has the "age of domain" dial cranked up to 11...if there's one search engine ranking factor that consistently skews results to the detriment of users, that would be it.
Gathering even more data, personalizing results, using social sites - these are nice things for search engines to do, but I think better results are already within their grasp, if some smaller changes were made. More data doesn't guarantee better results.
"Search & Discovery Suggestion
I can't look at the success of sites like StumbleUpon & Digg without thinking that search engines have to be experimenting in those fields. I imagine there are already efforts to attempt to provide "discovery" type information, searches, suggestions, etc. to users of the engine. "
- Google "note this" adds stuff to your own personal notebook... hmm... could it be how they will do this?
"Major Vertical Fracturing
Why would you run a real estate search on Yahoo! or Google when you can do it on Zillow? Why run a local search on those engines when Yelp offers so much amazing data (full disclosure - they're a client)? Could Avvo do this for the legal industry? Could Technorati (or someone else) do it for the Blogosphere? The possibility that some verticals might be stolen away in large chunks from the major engines is certainly a possibility. "
- i would respectfully disagree with you on this... while i do most of my personal searching on Google, i still like yahoo maps better. always have. still use yahoo fantasy football instead of espn, etc.. for example.. zillow? would have never heard of it without your site. i would do a search on my search engine of choice for "dallas real estate" which brings up this nifty little widget tool thingy that allows me to pick what i want via Google.. which takes me to Google Base.. where i can sort by price and it also shows me map pins of each house.... honestly.. unless there was some other form of advertising that made me think of using zillow for some reason.. advertising, branding, etc.. i'd still stick with my google.. hell i think there is a real estate widget that i can use with my iGoogle. COOL!!
(DISCLAIMER: i own Google stock)
for example: Who uses MSN?
based on my personal experience only, CEOs, why? the IT guy set up their computer, didn't worry about personalization five years or more ago, google wasn't a big deal and they got used to the stock ticker and news feed from MSN so it's been their homepage for a while and they are unlikely to change.. occasionally they want Google toolbar for a pop-up blocker instead of the MSN product so a few searches here and there go to google but mostly they search via msn off their homepage.. same goes for yahoo! SBC yahoo! partnership... people just got used to using yahoo!
is this always true, no.. but i would think people like what works for them and if they encounter any problems will eschew the "niche" site for an old standard that gets them what they want quickly and easily.. of course.. if u can make it quicker and easier for them and get them to the new place.. then you may get traction.. otherwise, people will use what they are used to and comfortable with..
I've enjoyed reading most of your comments, but I have to disagree with you in part.
Local search is a bit different, because that's fairly easy to analyze based on the keywords, i.e. Chicago pizza or San Antonio lawyer. To which Google's onebox results usually give good results.
But there are lots of verticals where traditional search doesn't provide the best result. For travel, I frequently use Kayak for flights. I don't have to go to 10 different websites which promise cheap flights, I do one search and I have results specifically for my travel dates, pulled from multiple sites. I can refine by price range, preferred airlines and more. As much as I use Google for everything else, I wouldn't even attempt a similar search there. As many longtail searches as they get, I'd imagine "flights from CDG to SFO for less than $1000 in September 2007" isn't searched on very often.
Now, if you don't travel often you may not know about Kayak, and it may take a few years before it becomes a general population go to. Google could always introduce GoogleTravel, where any search for cheap flights populate a one box with results targeted by IP, but that still wouldn't have the level of accuracy of a search on Kayak.
There are a lot of other industries with similar opportunities, where a general search engine just isn't structured in a way that quickly returns the information you're looking for. I think vertical search is going to be major, and not as easy for general engines to take over as people would assume.
Disclaimer: I'm currently developing and pitching a vertical search engine.
actually, last time i did searchb for flights.. i did use kayak.. i think based on the industry we may have different players, i.e. iTunes or amazon for music (i miss CDNOW), i do kind of agree with your disagreement in reflection.. i guess it totally depends on what you are searching for and if you have used another provider for that particular industry segment.
:)
hi rand, ad) search & discovery detection
well, GOOGLE does already offer this tab (for igoogle)
https://www.google.com/ig/sharetab?source=stb&stid=1049831397576812498976ffa6861423ba05518fc3cd654e846cf
and
https://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=interesting_items.xml&source=imag
i tested it, but until now it sucks.