SES Amsterdam: The Changing Face of Search

After this introduction Kevin started his keynote. The keynote was based on what search looked like yesterday and looks like today and tomorrow. Yesterday a SERP was just textual and the results where not always as relevant as they should be and nowadays we see more and more (48% of the results and increasing) blended results with pictures, videos, local results, etc. Of course blended results don't always match and Kevin gave us a few nice examples for instance an ad of CheapTickets on the search term for the crash of the Turkish Airliner a few weeks ago.

Research has also shown that Google is more and more trying to get the results even more relevant for their users. Kevin shows us some figures which indicate that the number of ads on a SERP is decreasing and the CTR on those ads are increasing.

Tomorrow is being introduced as the term Conversation. Internet users more and more look for conversation (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and users all do that for free. In the US Google is testing the concept of reviewing a search result and Google gladly uses the input of their users.

Local Search
Local search becomes more and more important. Looking at the current SERP's the local results receive the highest number of clicks comparing with for example videos and images.
In America and probably in the Netherlands and Europe also people hardly use the printed yellow pages anymore. Internet has replaced these books and there is a huge opportunity for local advertisers and small business just because of the blended SERP's.

Google’s domination
Google dominates the Internet looking at the number of services and their reach in the US and Europe. Asia is still a tough region to concur, because Yahoo! still rules the Asian regions. A nice rising star between Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc. is Facebook!

Eventually Kevin sums up his story with a nice quote and advice: Ex-Google doesn’t equal genius. Many ex-Googlers left Google to startup a new business. Some with success, but not all of them, but look beyond and next to Google. Use other search engines and websites, look at their opportunities and learn to love it, because you can always go back to Google. Google will always be there!