Search, What Next?
Recently at the SES SFO conference there was a presentation by Brian Kaminski COO of iProspect that stated Search Engines would no longer be used within the next 5 years!
If we first accept that the Digital Industry is the fastest moving industry the world has ever seen and how it has changed over the years, is it such a radical step?
My gut feel to this is that search engines will evolve, not disappear. The presenter went on to say that search will be voice based, camera based and social led searches. Google already has the goggles application which although camera based still works on the same basis as a search engine. People are using the social media resources as search engines and voice recognition software has been about for sometime but ultimately it still has to return a result. This is what leads me to the thoughts of evolution as opposed to extinction.
With the volume of information available at our finger tips via all types of sources alerts, feeds and search, some people can become easily overwhelmed, so how do you filter out the quality results from the poor ones? Currently sites that the search engines deem to be of a lower quality are ranked accordingly. BUT…. could Google (who’s driver is relevancy) et al conceivably blackball sites that do not reach a minimum standard? We’ve already seen many discussions on W3C compliance and how it does or does not effect your rankings, so is it that big a leap to completely denying visibility. I think not!
Clearly only time will tell how and when change will come, when it does agencies need to be in a position to respond. They need to know and act fast, hence the reason continual testing helps you understand your traffic and conversions it will also keep you abreast of the changes within the world of search.
The Bottom Line: Stay on top of your Digital Marketing effort, use every resource available to stay informed and keep testing!
