ISITE INSIGHT

Learn what new technologies are taking the luck out of search and are shaping the next generation of finding information online.

5 Key Trends for the Next Generation of Search

By Josiah Jones, ISITE Design

Keeping up with the latest search technology and trends can be a daunting task. However, with a little insight into how search engines work, and an eye on five important trends you can put luck aside, and put the engines to work for you.

Before we get to the trends, let's first take a look at the building blocks of today's search engines.

  • Spidering and Indexing: The term "spidering the web" conjures imagery of a spider crawling across a silky web of interconnected strands. Metaphorically one can imagine an electronic spider traversing hyperlinks looking for its prey: data. Search engines copy web page data with automated computer programs referred to as search robots or "bots". The bots spider the internet collecting data in a process referred to as indexing. Search engines often laud the size of their index, with Google rumored to be storing more than 8 billion unique pages in their databases.
  • Evaluation: Maintaining a large volume of website data is certainly an accomplishment. However, a solitary piece of data can lack meaning. For example a string of characters such as (888) 269-9103 is recognized by most people as a phone number due to the formatting. Likewise, a search engine could be programmed to evaluate the numerical sequence and use of parentheses. However, without context, neither humans nor machines would likely recognize it as the toll free number for ISITE Design. The way search engines evaluate and create these associations is what makes each truly unique.
  • Ranking and Results: Useful search results are all about relevancy. Each search engine's definition of relevancy ties back to how they evaluate and rank pages in their index. The formula used to determine the most relevant result is an area of competitive differentiation for each engine. Google uses its PageRank, which relies on factors such as incoming links to determine the relevance and relationship between sites on the web.

Five Key Trends for the Next Generation of Search

1. Social Search

One trend affecting search is the increase in user interaction and collaboration online. User input is changing not only the way search engines evaluate sites, but the search focused within websites themselves. Today's web users create, share, manipulate, rate, and comment on data. This audience participation creates a set of metadata that can be used in a number of ways.

For example, Digg provides mechanisms for users to sort, rank, and comment on web content. If a blog post, or news story has a large number of people who "Digg it" then it is displayed with an increased popularity rating on Digg and presented with the comments and categorization tags users have associated with the content. As people comment or blog about sites like Digg, the search engines take this information into account for their evaluation. Thus, creating and leveraging ways for users to comment about your site content, or automatically submit pages to services like Digg may affect search rankings.

2. Geographic Search

Searching for information geographically is a familiar concept going back to the days of phone books. However, the powerful data integration available online is bringing new interest to location specific queries. For example, many online mapping services now integrate contextual ads, or other related web content by location. Applications like Google Maps and Google Earth are examples of successful location-based search interfaces that are starting to combine data from other sources. Other companies like MetaCarta are building businesses around selling location-based search tools.

3. Image and Video Search

Traditionally, video has been a very difficult medium to index, and search for online. There are two primary reasons for this. First, it is difficult for machines to interpret video, audio and image data. Computers are much more effective at analyzing text than trying to logically describe the nature of an image. Image and video search has traditionally been reliant on text based metadata and descriptions of content. Some emerging technologies are taking a fresh approach by integrating facial and voice recognition. These tools allow search engines to bridge the gap between visual and text based content. Retrievr is an entertaining example of this. Their site allows you to draw in the sketch box as a means of finding images on the Flickr photography site. Metadata such as the ALT tag will continue to be important. The ALT tag offers a text description for images and videos that explains the content to search engines. The bonus is that you'll also be providing a key component of accessibility, allowing tools like screen readers (for the visually impaired) to process and communicate the content.

4. Mobile Search

Mobile devices integrated with geographic search are likely to become increasingly important to website stakeholders. This functionality is not limited to web capable phones that have browsers. SMS texting queries can be linked to a variety of data, much like the Google SMS service Beta. New companies are springing up all over the world with mobile-based search services. Recently MeetMoi launched a mobile dating service application using both mobile and location-based searching. What information could benefit users on your website via text message?

5. Paid Search Marketing

While search marketers strive for optimal organic search rankings, the reality of today's search landscape is that paying for online ads is a highly effective method to drive very targeted users to your website. This has been the billion dollar concept that has driven Google's growth and helped marketers reach new customers with very targeted campaigns. While paid search remains one of the most popular marketing vehicles, it's evolving every day with new technologies like behavioral targeting and personalized search. Regardless of the technology, smart marketers understand that keyword buys and ad copy should be constantly revised based on analysis of traffic, website conversions and sales.

Conclusion

By paying attention to these trends, marketers can rely less on luck in understanding how to help users better find content online. ISITE Design's strategy department is keenly interested in helping companies increase the findability of their sites and content.

Interested to learn more about ISITE Design? Contact one of our strategists at results@isitedesign.com.