Things seem to be getting more intuitive and search patterns are delivering tighter and better results – but at the same time it seems to be getting harder to position a website into a search engine where it can be found.
When you ask a question you really only want one answer, not to be told there are 133 million other pages of information and maybe the ones Google show you are in the right order.
There is a shift to semantic search which should give search results accurate and relevant to the “thought” behind the phrase or words entered.
An application of this is Askmenow which works like a human and will give one answer to a question from your cell phone by sms – great if you happen to live in the USA
I have used Google in preference to everything else since 1999, now it is getting to be a habit although I know there are some interesting options – when I need to search I can never remember the name of the new service and just go to my Google search box.
For Google, I am using the Google beta from Google labs of their “Google Suggest” searches Google Suggest
Google Suggest is not really a true semantic search facilty, but it is moving in the right way I think. The new semantic search engine I am watching is http://hakia.com/ – this gives good results.
This will mean that for the huge search engine optimisation industry and our daily efforts to get to the top of the Google listings by fair means or foul, will go out of the window. It is back to what I was saying in 1997, content is all that should matter and if your website looks like a duck and quacks like a duck – then it is a duck.