Today is the last day of 2009, and so fitting, I feel, to write a post about what 2009 had to offer us in the world of Search.
Search made some great strides in 2009, and we saw alot of changes to the way that search engines deliver results to users. The recent introduction of real time search (providing results from Social Media Channels such as Twitter) was probably the most significant change this year.
Search also became very personalised in 2009, with the introduction of Google Wiki. This allows users to manage their own results (through promotion of or removal of) when they are signed into their Google account. At the time this was seen as a potential problem for SEO consultants, but in fairness I think it has done more to enhance the experience of search for the end user.
Of course, its difficult to talk about 2009 and not mention the introduction of BING. Even if you still haven’t been convinced or are not a big fan Bing seems to have had a clear influence on Google. If it wasn’t for Bing we may have been still waiting for real time search results for example.
It’s also hard to forget the Google broke its own search results (well, here in the UK anyway) during 2009. Thousands of UK searchers were being delivered US relative results. I know that this caused many SEO’s problems for a short period of time.
We have also seen the introduction of and extreme growth of many Search and Social Media Tools . Twitter is probably the cherry on the icing on the cake, as millions of internet users and businesses ‘Tweet’ to make themselves heard. Google Wave, a personal communication and collaboration tool, was also introduced through ‘invitation’ to around 100,000 users. We think that Wave will make great strides in the first quarter of 2010.
I am sure 2010 will be a very interesting year for search.
Happy New Year!
