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2004 - A Year of Search in Review
By Jim Hedger, Contributing Writer, StepForth Search Engine 
Placement Inc.
(http://www.stepforth.com/)

The past year will be remembered as the most interesting year
in the history of search, that is until this time next year.
2004 witnessed the end of the search engine cold-war and the
beginning of what is likely to be an intense rivalry between
Google and MSN. It also showed a clear demarcation between who's
hot and who's not in the business of search.

There were more subtle shifts in the business of search last
year than most of the previous years combined. 2003 was the
watershed year of mergers and acquisitions, a trend that
continued well into 2004, but it wasn't until mid-summer that
the growth of the industry started to make a lot of sense. The
obvious winners of 2004 were the Big3: Google, Yahoo and MSN
but underpinning the success of the Big3 were the real winners
of 2004; the writers of add-ons, features and innovative
technologies related to search.

2004 was the year Blog became a household word and the year that
Bloggers fundamentally changed the face of the Web. Blogs were
the most powerful tool popularized in the past year and are now
supported by every major player in the search field. Bloggers
heavily influenced Google rankings, causing Google to change the
way it weighs and values incoming links. Bloggers have also
changed the tone of journalism and opened a new information
publishing frontier to the general public. The first major
Blog-based search tool I know of was developed by Loren Barker
for Mark Cuban's search engine IceRocket.

The past year was one of announcements, one-ups and positioning
as the major search engines struggled to roll out as many
improvements and innovations as possible. Items such as
search-engine specific toolbars, desktop search applications,
local-search features and super-sized Email accounts were
introduced to win and retain the loyalty of users. The various
battlefronts of the search engine war shifted enormously over
the past year, ultimately offering search users 3 unique major
search engines, the widest array of independent choices seen in
almost four years. At this time last year, Google dominated the
organic listings by providing the database for most of its
rivals. That changed in first quarter of 2004 when Yahoo
introduced its own algorithmic search database. MSN followed
with the release of its own search engine late in the third
quarter. Even with the growth of its rivals, Google continued
to dominate the news this year and was the ultimate winner in
2004.

Many if not all decisions and initiatives in the search
industry, regardless of where or by whom they were made, had one
common factor. Google's successful IPO had the biggest influence
on the business of search last year. Development and innovation
throughout the search industry was promoted by the IPO much like
the search sector was dominated by Google's database in 2003.
For rivals, there was and continues to be an overwhelming fear
of Google's seemingly limitless growth plans. Those watching the
industry should not make the same mistake the pros did in 2004
by assuming Google's sometimes juvenile hubris demonstrated a
lack of long-term planning. Over the last quarter of this year,
Google showed that it has as many plans as it has patents,
making it almost impossible to predict what the landscape will
look like twelve months from now. Given Google's growth, assume
the landscape is going to be much larger, covering more of what
the Internet can deliver to home and business consumers.

While expansion and introduction of new services was the way of
the search world, many of the new products rolled out by search
services seem to be copycat productions. Every search tool has a
toolbar and each is interested in desktop search. Google was the
first of the Big3 to introduce a functioning desktop search
feature with MSN introducing their version earlier this week and
Yahoo expected to release its version in January 2005. While
Google Desktop gathered the most print-space this year, it
wasn't the first of the well-known names to introduce a desktop
appliance. That bragging right goes to Lycos/HotBot which
released a very good desktop search feature in March. Since
then, everyone else has fallen over their own feet trying to
release their version of desktop search.

The other major trend-setting innovation seen in 2004 was the
advent of Local search features. Google and Yahoo dominate the
local search market but MSN and several smaller rivals have also
shown great interest in local search. At this time, it is
difficult to state who is really ahead in this field as both
Google and Yahoo offer highly credible local search features.
Google likely has the dominant positioning though since it has
brokered deals with most of the major telephone directory
services to integrate their databases into Google's Local search
tool. It is still very easy to get your site into Yahoo local as
well.

Assigning the role of losers, while fitting with the "winners"
theme is more difficult. The "big losers" of 2004 (if one can
call them that) didn't really lose much at all, and continued
to introduce technically strong products such as Lycos/Hotbot's
desktop search feature. When considered against the Big3
however, the smaller players didn't gain enough ground to be
considered major players anymore. Google, Yahoo and MSN
fundamentally dominate the search landscape of early 2005. Given
the growth of all three over the past twelve months it will be
difficult if not impossible to beat them in the next twelve.
Smaller players shouldn't lose heart though. 2005 is going to
be a time of immense change on the Internet and in the world
of search and that change will likely leave some room for
maneuvering on the part of AskJeeves, AOL, Lycos and Vivisimo.

Next edition, we will be making our predictions for 2005! Where
do you think the world of search is going? Anyone interested in
sharing their predictions is welcome to write me over the
holidays at jimhedger@stepforth.com . We will be interested in
adding ideas from all over the world to the next edition.

================================================================
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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