Cowboys looking forward: 2010 predictions (3)

Dennis Sievers

The biggest search trend in 2009 was and still is accountability. How much is one investing in search, and what does he or she get for all of that pennies. This trend is still very strong and will become even more hot in 2010. Especially because of some new laws coming up here in Europe, and visitors of websites need to approve that a cookie is being set on their computer.

Next to that, personalization will be taken to a next level, and not only by the search engines, but also by its users. Search engines will bring users more and more tailor made results, based on their behavior. On the other hand, users will go and search via verticals more and more. Especially product-search via non-search-engine-routes is taking a flight next year.

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Martijn Beijk

I believe the search engines will use more aggregated data, microformats, RDFa and start using the buildstones of the semantic web that are available or start developing their own buildstones for the semantic web. The connected data that the semantic web will be able to provide is of great interest to the search engines. I also believe that the new HTML5 will have huge impact on semantics. Expect even more, and especially more relevant video results.

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Sam Murray

I would expect Google to further enhance their understanding of user intent which they have struggled to do previously, and to progress in their understanding of the relationship between words, such as synonyms. As Matt Cutts mentioned recently Google is always on the lookout for new kinds of data such as searching email, book and calendar search so this would help them achieve that. Additionally, they already have Google Squared which is an example of them actively trying to achieve a greater understanding of user intent, and what they expect from search queries.  It may happen where they begin to recognise whether the intent of a search query is transactional or informational and they can alter the SERPs to reflect a user’s needs.
 
How can I not comment on the Google Caffeine update? I think the roll out in the New Year could also see site speed metrics potentially beginning to affect how Google perceives the website in terms of ranking potential and authority.  This will be something that will need to be considered in the future as ultimately, Google wants to return faster results to users so why would they want to rank and give preference to websites which take an age to load?

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