What Search will be in 2011
As we are stepping into the New 2011, many are optimistic about what 2011 will bring to us. This is the same for Search. In our generation, we grew up with search engine. Searches have grown from researching for an academic paper to searching for the cheapest bottle of shampoo nearby. If we don’t know something, “Google it”, a term that is commonly heard which means to look up what we dont’ know in the Google search engine. It’s phenomenal to see how a company noun is now commonly used as a verb, synonymous to search.
An article predicts 10 trends for search in the year 2011. Below are a few interesting ones. See if you agree.
1. App search – As more people are using smartphones, a marketer predicts that the next thing in search will be for the search engines to show apps instead of websites that will answer your question. It will allow the users to install the app that will get them what they are looking for.
This may sound like a pretty cool idea, but wouldn’t everyone be downloading a lot of apps in order to find what they want? Even with website, you might not be able to find your answers in the first web page you go to. If the search returns with different apps, then how do we know which app will exactly answer what we want?
2. Search filters get tougher – In 2010, Google implement the “May Day” algorithm that punishes websites that are almost exactly the same. In the upcoming year, marketers expect that search filters will get even tougher to limit less valuable content and maximize the most unique and valuable content.
This would be exciting news for users as search will return websites that often have very similar content. The problem with web is that it is too easy to start up a website and take the content of someone else’s by changing a few words. With tougher search filter, hopefully it will be more efficient when we use search to find what we want.
3. Instant Preview is here to stay – I am not sure how many of you know of this feature, but when you search something in Google, beside each result, there is a magnifying glass. By clicking the magnifying glass, you will be able to get a preview of the website to help you decide if you want to go into the web page to see more.
This sounds like a pretty cool feature, but I actually didn’t know of it until now. The previews are actually not that clear so you can’t really read the text in the preview. I don’t know how useful this feature is because with the speed of internet now, opening and closing a web page is within seconds.
Read the rest of the 7 trends here.
