This article provides 4 predictions of where search is headed and how it will add to the user’s search experience.

1. Corporate Search

Generally speaking it is easier for people to find information on the web than it is on their own corporate intranet. Finding the right documents and information quickly and without having to trawl through various directories and database is a must. We will continue to see companies battle it out in the corporate sector. Not surprisingly, Google, have an enterprise solution where a Google-designed server is simply plugged into the intranet and goes to work indexing documents. Two industry heavyweights, IBM and Yahoo! have teamed up to introduce OmniFind, a software-based enterprise search solution to compete in the corporate market.

1. Location, Location, Location

With the rise of mobile phones, wireless hotspots and GPS, users will demand location-based search. Although we are in a globalised economy, people are yearning for that sense of local community. Look out for the major search engines to push “local search” (Eg. Yahoo! Local). Also watch out for mobile enabled search with the capacity of searching local businesses and even “finding a friend” in a crowd.

Sensis.com.au claims to enhance their search by integrating their Yellowpages, Whitepages, CitySearch and TradingPost assets to serve up local results. Businesses will be (and already have) begun to take a localized approach to advertising, rather than a “shot gun” approach characterized in the early days of online advertising.

1. Business Linkages

Have you ever tried to find a business partner via the web? Currently, search engines allow you to find companies, but not the right person in that organization to contact. This is where search and social networking will merge. So in the future, we will see a lot more business linkages between key decision makers within companies. A great example is LinkedIn, where you can search through and get introduced to a range of professionals from around the world. It’s not one big marketplace, where anyone and connect to everyone. You still will need to use your online network to establish contacts, just like you would in the physical world, to facilitate business connections.

1. Video and Podcast search

With the emergence of multiple forms of media out in the web, consumers will demand easier search of non-text based information. There are search engines that specialize in video and podcasts but they only search the “meta-data” (that is, information, tags and categories that accompany the media). Future research will focus on the search of the actual content of the media, by analyzing the media stream, extracting relevant information and keywords, index it and make it searchable. If this is achieved, this will help both the producers and consumers of content to connect to one another.

Final Thought

Humans have and always will need information. We will always place a premium on finding it. But let us not confuse information with knowledge, nor wisdom for that matter. Knowledge and wisdom will continue to remain the defining human advantage over machine. So be it.

This article gives a basic overview of how search engines work and tips to improve your ranking.

Yahoo!’s original strategy

In the beginning, Yahoo! started as a student hobby by David Filo and Jerry Yang, who in 1994 decided to keep an online list of interesting websites. As their list grew, they decided to put those links into categories, and sub-categories, and so on. This is important as this dictated their general approach to advertising – businesses pay to be listed within a certain category. Think of early Yahoo! as the YellowPages of the Internet world. Over time they developed search algorithms to trawl their listings (and then the web at large) for interesting websites.

Google’s approach

Like Yahoo!, Google was spun out of Stanford University by two PhD students: Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998. Their approach was to not to categorise websites but to rank them based on their popularity. On a basic level, website’s popularity is based on how many other websites link to them. So the more your website is linked by others the more popular you are and thus your website will be ranked higher than others.

As Google’s search engine evolved, their algorithm ranked “main stream media” websites (eg. News.com.au or cnn.com) as having higher quality content. So if your website is linked from these high quality sites, your ranking improves and you start to shoot to the top of Google’s search rankings. User’s found that Google’s method of indexing and ranking websites extremely useful in getting to relevant information on a consistent basis.

How do you get onto search engines?

There are a number of strategies to improve your website’s “popularity” ranking on search engines.

1. Content is king

Many people focus on “tricks” to fool search engines. Your primary strategy is to continually improve your website content. Make your content so interesting and so compelling that other website operators and bloggers want to link to you.

1. Write articles for the main stream media.

This is easier said than done. But take any opportunity to write opinion pieces or give interviews to the main stream media. Get them to provide a link to your website. The search engines will give your website a boost.

1. Participate in online forums

Find online communities in your areas of interest. Participate, but don’t “spam” your message. Make sure your website or business solves a need that is being discussed in the forum or blog.

1. Meta data

Make sure that you include meta data and meta tags to your website. This “meta” information helps search engines understand the content of your webpage and thus helps connect searchers to you. Ask your website operator to make sure that these are up to date and relevant to every page of your website.

1. Free press releases

There are a number of free press release services out there. Do a Google search for them. It’s one way to promote your site and getting links to your site.