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2005 Predictions - Watershed Ground
By Jim Hedger, StepForth News Editor,
StepForth Placement Inc., January 5, 2005

Three weeks ago we promised our predictions for the coming year.
Here they are. Please remember, we are techno-geeks, not
psychics. Some of these predictions may come true and some may
be way off base. We do know the search industry is evolving
faster than ever before. What seems fantastic today may well be
reality next month. 2004 was an interesting year in the business
of search, setting the stage for what should be a watershed year
in 2005.

2004 was an amazing year for the search engine marketing sector.
Over the past year, search has become the most important aspect
of the World Wide Web, eclipsed only by Email as the most widely
used online application. Benefiting from a highly profitable
year, the Big3 of Google, Yahoo and MSN enter 2005 with what
appears to be a lock-hold on the future of the sector.

The next twelve months will change the way we relate to
information, not only over the Internet but in the offline world
as well. There will be a lot more of it available at the click
of a button. Aside from thirsty searchers, the first to be
affected will be traditional information outlets such as
libraries, encyclopedias, newspapers and telephone directories.
Traditional media will start to feel a significant financial
pinch as information provision moves from print to digital
mediums. How the traditional information outlets will cope with
these changes remains to be seen but for the time being, expect
many to follow the old adage, "if you can't beat them, join
them".

The move towards personalization by the major search engines
will result in a change in the way sites are designed and the
way SEO is practiced. PHP design enthusiasts will rejoice as
regionally unique information-inserts become a major tool in the
advanced SEO sector. Another strain of doorway page dependent
SEO techniques will also evolve but given the changing
requirements of an increasing number of search tools, the
techniques might not be considered "black-hat" entirely. It will
likely become a case of "it ain't what you do it's the way that
you do it."

Search engine spiders have become far more powerful than ever
before reading and recording information from file types they
were previously unable to access. As more information is
accessible through search engines, a series of major algorithm
shifts is inevitable. We know that both MSN(beta) and IBM are
working to introduce what are being referred to as "Third
Generation" search tools designed to find context in specific
phrases and paragraphs found on pages in their indexes. Expect
the others to follow suit.

Broadband access will peak above 75% for most US home users in
2005. Now that legal challenges between the cable firms and
telephone companies in the US seems to have been settled, US
consumers will continue their mass-migration towards high-speed
connectivity at home. Like most waves of migration, this will
have an enormous impact on the business of entertainment. The
availability of high-speed home access will spell the end of the
big-business of entertainment distribution firms such as the
mainstream music industry. As the RIAA did not take advantage of
the two-year time lag between the United States adopting
broadband and the rest of the wired world enjoying high-speed
connectivity, many of their members will find themselves
unprepared to cope with increasing digital demand from
consumers. Expect to see a round of mergers and conglomeration
in the music industry as smaller players team up to stave off
the inevitable.

SEOs will start to see and use phrases like "Web-Document(s)" as
often as they see or use the word-phrase "web site(s)". Search
engine listings now reference material from sources that can no
longer be consistently described as "websites". For instance, a
unique video file referenced by Google might or might not be
housed on the same server as the web page that links to it.
Similarly, that web page might or might not reside on the same
server as the rest of the website it is a part of. Therefore
links found on Search Engine Results Pages do not necessarily
refer to websites as is the current norm, but will increasingly
point to specific web-documents. This trend will lead to the
development of page-specific SEO techniques and may result in a
regression of SEO techniques back towards doorway or leader
pages.

Someone far wiser than me will coin a better term than
"web-documents".

Jim Hedger will be beaten to a pulp in certain SEO forums for
the first fifteen days of the new year for even suggesting
Doorway pages might make a come back.

Several new types of vertical search engine will be introduced.
Most will be based on a user-pay model in which the user pays to
find and download entertainment materials such as music files,
streaming live events and television shows. We live in a
universe in which practically any digital file can be spidered,
indexed and referenced by search tools. Most pioneering firms
will not succeed as searchers discover they can find the same
material through one of the major search tools.

Watch for Yahoo to try to enter this arena before the others do.

Somehow, this year will be the beginning of the end for one of
the Big3. Google, Yahoo and MSN each have to make some defining
decisions based on what the others are doing. In 2004, each of
the Big3 worked to introduce several similar features and tools
such as desktop search and support for Bloggers. By trying to
overextend themselves against their competition, one of the Big3
will make a fatal error in judgment leading to a slow but
obvious decline.

Google will absorb the Library of Congress but due to Federal
funding cutbacks, no one is around to raise an alarm.

Smaller businesses will work to keep the Big3 honest by
demanding stronger organic results. An article earlier today
likened the current search engine world to a penny-farthing
bicycle with the larger front wheel representing PPC and the
smaller back wheel representing organic SEO. As costs for PPC
increase, expect to see a quiet revolt amongst smaller PPC
advertisers as they begin to become more sophisticated,
switching back and forth between PPC and organic campaigns as
their sales cycle suits them.

Google needs to figure out the limits of what it seems to think
is infinity. That's enough to drive any corporate culture to
distraction. Fortunately, Google continues to live in what might
as well be an infinite universe as the scope of GoogleBot's reach
keeps growing exponentially. At the same time, the scope of
AdWords real estate is also growing exponentially, thus
providing plenty of fuel for future exploration. Google's big
problem this year will be preventing the inevitable backlash as
web users learn that increasingly Google is to the Web what
Microsoft was to PCs a decade ago.

MSN will enter the PPC market by the end of the first quarter.
This prediction is relatively easy to make as MSN has been
headhunting some of the most well known names in Search Engine
Marketing the past few weeks.

Smaller search tools such as Ask Jeeves and Vivisimo (Clusty)
will be recognized for their innovations in the field of search.
Ask Jeeves will market their backend search engine, Teoma as a
stand alone alterative to Google, MSN and Yahoo with some degree
of success. Vivisimo will finally find marketing firms that can
help them brand their clustering technology with names search
engine users can actually relate to.

Video advertisements will start to appear alongside organic
search results. This is almost a reality as a Texan start-up,
SiSTeR.TV is in negotiations with several of the largest search
engines.

The law of Karma will sneak up on Microsoft from two totally
different directions. First, Microsoft will begin to feel a
great deal of heat from the super-hot Firefox browser. With
market penetration of almost 15% in the last quarter of 2004 and
continued hype, the Explorer browser may find itself in deep
trouble. Secondly, Google is rumoured to be assisting in the
development of a new operating system that could challenge
Microsoft's greatest asset, the Windows operating system.

Search Engine Optimizers and Marketers will be treated like the
super-stars they really are. StepForth's Head SEO Scott Van
Achte will be asked to head British Columbia's government in
early May but will turn down the position as the job is simply
not intense enough for his liking.

Ok, that's it for the beginning of this year. One thing I do
know is that by the end of this new year, search engines will be
remarkably different than they are today. The Internet as we
understand it today will seem like a Model T car in twelve
months time. The Net is about to get faster, bigger and much
more interesting.

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Jim Hedger is a writer, speaker and search engine marketing
expert based in Victoria BC. Jim works with a limited group of
clients and provides consultancy services to StepForth Search
Engine Placement (http://www.stepforth.com). He has worked as an
SEO for over 5 years and welcomes the opportunity to share his
experience through interviews, articles and speaking engagements.
Other articles by Jim Hedger can be found at 
http://news.stepforth.com
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