Time is a relative dimension, especially when it is measured at the speed of light. (Apologies to uncle Albert) It is amazing how much can change in only six months. It is said that a year on the Internet is like five years in the non-digital world. The past six months have brought so many changes to the search engine world it has been difficult to keep up. The next six months may well revolutionize the industry.

About four years ago, Google emerged as the search engine of choice for experienced Internet users. Using the simple but effective concepts that search engines should be fast, clean and more democratic, Google’s founders created a tool that would compile the greatest cache of knowledge ever created by humans and find unique pieces of information within that cache in mere seconds. The success of Google has literally changed the way people use the Internet and has made searching for information the second most useful Internet application after Email. Google’s success has also redefined the financial sector of the IT economy with the largest corporate entities in the world desperately trying to either catch up to Google or cause Google to trip on its own path. Combined with Google’s recent five-month algorithmic upset, these strategies are starting to pay off. Google is losing its luster in the eyes of search engine users and starting to lose clients and confidence to both Overture and MSN.

MSN has recently announced it is compiling its own search database, largely based on the trail Google blazed four years ago. MSNBot is already spidering its way across the entire web, following every link it finds and absorbing all the information it can find into that database. With the seemingly unlimited resources at Microsoft’s disposal, it is a safe assumption that they will soon present the Googleplex with the greatest challenge it has ever faced. Microsoft is also leveraging its deals with Google’s other major competitor, Overture in order push Google out of emerging markets such as South Korea, Italy and Germany.

Meanwhile, the camp at Overture is celebrating a series of wins at Google’s expense. Overture’s deal with MSN extends its search services on MSN sites internationally until December 2004. Overture has also pulled other contracts away from Google including being the search tool of choice for Freeservers-UK, the largest ISP in Britain. With the recent purchase of FAST and AltaVista, Overture has the ability to offer algorithmic search results and is working to relieve Google of it’s responsibilities with as many ISPs as possible. Overture has recently solidified its relationships with MSN and Yahoo, deals that will account for approximately 2/3 of Overture’s annual income.

Google has spent the last six months improving its search results by working on, live testing and live tweaking a new ranking algorithm. This period saw increasingly unreliable results appearing on Google including a great deal of SPAM and inaccurate references offered on Google’s search engine return pages. Six months is an awfully long time on the Internet and the coveted user-loyalty that sustained Google as the search-king has begun to wane. While Google seems to be getting back to presenting highly relevant results that remain the same from day to day, users are starting to migrate, many to Overture’s newest properties, AlltheWeb.Com and AltaVista.Com. The engineers and planners at Google seem to have bet the farm on presenting the best possible search results, which is to be expected from the World’s leading search engine but, in the eyes of many professional webmasters, business owners and search engine optimizers, the past six months have been too upsetting and unstable.

What a difference half a year makes. Next year should be even more interesting, especially if Google issues its long-anticipated IPO.

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There is another digital revolution brewing, the outcomes of which could place your business in the foreground or bump your business to the background, depending on how you play your cards. According to research being conducted at the University of Alberta by business professor Paul Messinger, businesses must do better at understanding how consumers shop online. Messinger’s research, which involves six other Canadian universities, is being funded by an $865,000 grant from the Canadian government. Messinger believes that, like in the ‘real world’, Web shoppers return to sites (stores) they’ve learned to navigate through and are comfortable with. “If you’re like a normal person, you go to no more than a dozen sites for shopping”, said Messinger. People do surf for information but tend to do less exploring once they’ve found a trusted source that meets their needs. He also points out that they “use web sites to build a sense of community among customers -- and encourage brand loyalty”, making the web a natural extension of the business’s brick-and-mortar operation. Virtual businesses tend to do better when they arrive early in the game such as Amazon and Travelocity.

Knowing Internet user’s habits can make your site successful and save your business a great deal of money in development and experimentation. Watch for snippets of Professor Messinger’s findings to be released slowly over the next three years of his study.