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2004 - A Year of Search in Review
By Jim Hedger, Contributing Writer, StepForth
Placement Inc., December 14, 2004
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This is the last edition of the StepForth Weekly News for 2004, making
this the perfect time to write a retrospective before moving into the new
year. The past year will be remembered as the most interesting year in the
history of search, that is until this time next year. 2004 witnessed the
end of the search engine cold-war and the beginning of what is likely to
be an intense rivalry between Google and MSN. It also showed a clear demarcation
between who's hot and who's not in the business of search.
There were more subtle shifts in the business of search last year than
most of the previous years combined. 2003 was the watershed year of mergers
and acquisitions, a trend that continued well into 2004, but it wasn't
until mid-summer that the growth of the industry started to make a
lot of sense.
The obvious winners of 2004 were the Big3: Google, Yahoo and MSN but
underpinning the success of the Big3 were the real winners of 2004;
the writers of add-ons,
features and innovative technologies related to search.
2004 was the year Blog became a household word and the year that Bloggers
fundamentally changed the face of the Web. Blogs were the most powerful
tool popularized in the past year and are now supported by every major
player in the search field. Bloggers heavily influenced Google rankings,
causing
Google to change the way it weighs and values incoming links. Bloggers
have also changed the tone of journalism and opened a new information
publishing frontier to the general public. The first major Blog-based
search tool
I
know of was developed by Loren Barker for Mark Cuban's search engine
IceRocket.
The past year was one of announcements, one-ups and positioning as
the major search engines struggled to roll out as many improvements
and innovations
as possible. Items such as search-engine specific toolbars, desktop
search applications, local-search features and super-sized Email accounts
were
introduced to win and retain the loyalty of users. The various battlefronts
of the search engine war shifted enormously over the past year, ultimately
offering search users 3 unique major search engines, the widest array
of independent choices seen in almost four years. At this time last
year, Google
dominated the organic listings by providing the database for most of
its rivals. That changed in first quarter of 2004 when Yahoo introduced
its
own algorithmic search database. MSN followed with the release of its
own search engine late in the third quarter. Even with the growth of
its rivals,
Google continued to dominate the news this year and was the ultimate
winner in 2004.
Many if not all decisions and initiatives in the search industry, regardless
of where or by whom they were made, had one common factor. Google's successful
IPO had the biggest influence on the business of search last year. Development
and innovation throughout the search industry was promoted by the IPO
much like the search sector was dominated by Google's database in 2003.
For rivals,
there was and continues to be an overwhelming fear of Google's seemingly
limitless growth plans. Those watching the industry should not make the
same mistake the pros did in 2004 by assuming Google's sometimes juvenile
hubris demonstrated a lack of long-term planning. Over the last quarter
of this year, Google showed that it has as many plans as it has patents,
making it almost impossible to predict what the landscape will look like
twelve months from now. Given Google's growth, assume the landscape is
going to be much larger, covering more of what the Internet can deliver
to home
and business consumers.
While expansion and introduction of new services was the way of the search
world, many of the new products rolled out by search services seem to
be copycat productions. Every search tool has a toolbar and each is interested
in desktop search. Google was the first of the Big3 to introduce a functioning
desktop search feature with MSN introducing their version earlier this
week
and Yahoo expected to release its version in January 2005. While Google
Desktop gathered the most print-space this year, it wasn't the first
of the well-known names to introduce a desktop appliance. That bragging
right
goes to Lycos/HotBot which released a very good desktop search feature
in March. Since then, everyone else has fallen over their own feet trying
to
release their version of desktop search.
The other major trend-setting innovation seen in 2004 was the advent
of Local search features. Google and Yahoo dominate the local search
market but MSN and several smaller rivals have also shown great interest
in local
search. At this time, it is difficult to state who is really ahead in
this field as both Google and Yahoo offer highly credible local search
features. Google likely has the dominant positioning though as it has
brokered deals
with most of the major telephone directory services to integrate their
databases into Google's Local search tool. It is still very easy to get
your site
into Yahoo local as well.
Assigning the role of losers, while fitting with the "winners" theme
is more difficult. The "big losers" of 2004 (if one can call them
that) didn't really lose much at all, and continued to introduce technically
strong products such as Lycos/Hotbot's desktop search feature. When considered
against the Big3 however, the smaller players didn't gain enough ground
to be considered major players anymore. Google, Yahoo and MSN fundamentally
dominate the search landscape of early 2005. Given the growth of all
three over the past twelve months it will be difficult if not impossible
to beat
them in the next twelve. smaller players shouldn't lose heart though.
2005 is going to be a time of immense change on the Internet and in the
world
of search and that change will likely leave some room for maneuvering
on the part of AskJeeves, AOL, Lycos and Vivisimo.
Next edition, we will be making our predictions for 2005! Where do
you think the world of search is going? Anyone interested in sharing
their
predictions is welcome to write me over the holidays at jimhedger@stepforth.com
. We
will be interested in adding ideas from all over the world to the next
edition.
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