Where Is The Future Of Search Going?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

All the search engines have been scrambling around quite a bit over the last year to position themselves as the number one source, everything from Microsoft’s very expensive push with Bing to Google just scrambling around clawing to make the next big thing. But where is all this scrambling really heading? What I do know is that websites like Google need to make some changes because the amount of content entering the live space does not seem to always make it into the search results.

I recently did a Google search for the phrase: The Future of Search

What I got was actually quite astonishing. One up to date recent article on view points of where the search industry is heading. The third link down was an article from 2004! How does an article from 2004 on the future of search help anyone? The future of search could happen tomorrow. This is an extremely fast moving industry and I have a hard time believing that the only piece of information relating to the future of search is an article from 2004 and a handful of articles from early 2009. With Google going through with a massive algorithm shift in 2010 at some point I think we are going to see the next generation of search. What that entails I am not sure but it could very well be the future of search as we see it.

Social media has obviously been a strong driving force on how the search engines are starting to shape up. It is clear that all three major search engines find the value in providing social conversations and discussions into the search results. It is also obvious that people do not want to be bombarded by the same old search results over and over and it has become increasingly important focus on not just rankings but also building your business online through proactive branding efforts. We are slowly moving towards a personalized search world and how fast it arrives is anybody’s guess. The search engines are evolving into creatures that understand what you want almost instantly. Think about how far the search engines have come in just a few short years? The trending pattern is taking it into an artificial intelligence like state, where the search engine knows who you are as soon as you arrive. Will they do it by tracking IP addresses? Where they realize an IP address and know who it is instantly? This could very well be a reality in the next few years. With the recent Bing & Yahoo deal finally going through and being official I think we could see a search race between Yahoo and Google on who can make the most radical shift in search in the quickest time possible.