So I decided to go down a slightly different path for this article. For this, I wanted to get the opinions of some big names in the field about what they thought the most significant things of 2008 were with regards to search, and what the biggest changes were from 2007 to 2008. I figured it would make for a more interesting article and certainly a less time-consuming one not only for me, but for readers as well.

Editor’s Note: It’s been a very interesting year for search, and the coming year promises to be even more so. This article looks at how some of the most recognizable names in the industry view the everchanging industry. Where it has gone and where it is going. What do you think?

And while we’re on celebrating the year coming to the end and the holidays, we’d also like to share this holiday greeting video with you:

Semantic and Intent-Based Search

I decided to start in-house and find out what our own Mike McDonald thought the most significant thing to the search industry was in the year 2008. "I think the biggest POTENTIAL event of ’08 was Microsoft’s purchase of Powerset," he told me. Now keep in mind (in case the emphasis wasn’t enough), he said potential, meaning it could have big implications for the search industry’s future. Powerset is all about language analysis and semantic search. "Semantic search and interpretive queries based on semantics are going to be big. Language and implied intent is a major direction for search moving forward," Mike said. "So, in my opinion, 2008 marks the start of the real race to a more language/intent/semantic approach to search."

There is no doubt that how we receive search results is in for some change. There has certainly been a lot of talk about it with regards to Google, and Yahoo too for that matter with their whole "open" strategy, but we haven’t heard as much about Microsoft on this. Mike may be on to something here. Microsoft no doubt hopes Powerset will be its ace in the hole to gain some search market share.

Personalization, Universal Search, and SearchWiki

Search Engine Roundtable Editor Barry Schwartz had this to say: "I think one of the most significant changes in 2008 was just about a month ago with the launch of SearchWiki in the search results.  Although I think the average searcher is not ready for it, it is here and there are no signs that it will be going away any time soon.  Not only does this give a searcher the ability to boost or remove search results, Google has admitted that they may be using data gleaned from SearchWiki to change the search results for everyone else.  So, I think that this, along with Universal Search, will have one of the most significant impacts in early 2009."

The mere fact that it is Google changing the way they deliver results is enough to make this significant. Google is obviously the top dog in terms of search market share (though not in every country), and most of us use it over its competitors. No matter what Yahoo, Microsoft or anyone else is doing, what Google is doing is going to have a tremendous impact just because its the one more people use.

"The biggest change is the SERP itself. With more universal search, more personalized search, and now SearchWiki, Google is training users to expect ‘more than 10 blue links’," says Atlas Web Service Owner and President Michael Gray. "Other search engines that don’t provide rich results are seen [as] behind the times."

"I’d say that the most significant thing to happen in the search industry in 2008 was the advent of more personalized search, and even more so, the new addition of SearchWiki showing up in Google," says High Rankings CEO Jill Whalen. "It’s too soon to really know what will happen with that, but my guess is that it will cause some reputation management nightmares for many companies."

This is a point that has crossed my mind, and one I intend to explore further in the near future. I think it will be quite interesting to see what kinds of reputation management changes will have to come into play as a result of the changing SERP strategies of the major search engines.

"The biggest change from 2007-2008 was the advent of Universal/Blended Search results which came out in May of 2007," added Whalen. "It has caused some urgency in companies to create multimedia content in order to have their images and/or video snippets show up in the search results."

The Economy and SEO

"In terms of the biggest changes, that might go as far to worry me a bit, is what is going on in the economy," says Schwartz. "We all know about the financial trouble Yahoo is going through to compete with Google and Microsoft.  Yahoo is struggling to survive, as opposed to struggling to even compete and that is scary.   Google, for the first time, is cutting back big time.  They even have decided to not give out holiday gifts this year  – which is significant, in terms of Google.  What type of impact will the economic turn down play in 2009 and search?   Will this impact SEO jobs?  I have seen more and more SEMs loose their jobs recently.  Will this stifle search relevancy?  These are my concerns."

These are certainly valid concerns. Changes in how search results are going to be delivered are going to be challenging for SEOs as it is. 2009 will definitely be a crucial year for SEOs in terms of staying on top of their game.

Community, Professionalism, Clients, and Browsing

"I would say the single biggest change in the field of SEO is the deterioration of the sense of community and professional decency in favor of self-promotion at any cost – where people promote spam reporting each other even when their own past reports were both damaging and inconsistent with search engine editorial policies," SEOBook Author Aaron Wall tells me. "The next biggest change would be Google launching a browser. They still have limited market share, but as they gain market share that gives them yet another dimension to view the web through, and gives them even more search market share."

Google’s Chrome browser could really turn into another big thorn in Microsoft’s side not only by dominating more search market share as a result of increased Chrome use, but obviously by cutting into Internet Explorer use, a browser that already had its fair share of competition from the likes of Apple, Mozilla, and Opera.

As far as the deterioration of the sense of community and professional decency, this is no doubt directly related to the growth in "social media marketing" and the lack of understanding of the goals of such on the part of many of the people engaging in it.

On the other hand, Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization CEO Dave Davies says, "The biggest change has got to be in the clients.  Clients are coming to us [SEOs] far more informed as to what they want and what the limitations of SEO are.  No longer are people asking for top 10 results for competitive phrases and disappointed when we tell them 3 months just isn’t going to happen.  They understand a lot more about what we’re doing and how long it takes."

Competition and Google’s Increased Domination

"I think 2008 might go down as the year Google moved into complete market share domination, not completely through their own doings, but because Microsoft and Yahoo! failed to reach a deal to combine efforts and because the market has been so tough on Yahoo! while both engines (and other tertiary engines like Ask.com) lost share to Google," says Wizard of Moz (SEOmoz) Rand Fishkin. "In 2007, I held out hope that together, these three – Ask, Yahoo! and Microsoft – along with the possible newcomer, Cuil.com, would have some positive impact in preventing or postponing a Google monopoly, but after 2008, I’m very skeptical that we’ll see anyone keep Google from reaching 90%+ search share in the next few years."

That doesn’t mean the competition won’t continue to try. Yahoo seems to be doing all it can with it’s open search strategy to bring new forms of relevancy to its search results, though its ability to steal away a remarkable amount of Google users remains to be seen.

"The Yahoo-Microsoft Merger That Wasn’t was the most significant thing, as it caused both companies to be weakened against Google and remains as the biggest doubt about their success, as the off-again, on-again rumors continue," says Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Danny Sullivan. "Search marketers need healthy competition among the search engines, and the competition ain’t healthy."

Dave Davies also cited this. "Refusing a deal at $33/share and now sitting at around $13 has got to go down as one of the big ‘tragedies’ of 2008 in the search industry," he says.

Adjusting Focus

"The biggest change was probably more awareness that it’s not about getting more traffic but how to better convert the existing traffic you have," says Sullivan. "I hear more and more people paying attention to metrics, these days." I suspect this type of mentality will continue to increase as changes in SERPs render some traditional SEO tactics obsolete.

Another thing SEOs and Internet marketers are going to have to watch out for is what happens with regards to net neutrality. This issue isn’t always brought up in the search engine marketing discussion, but as Cindy Krum discussed with Abby Johnson) in the following video from SES Chicago, it should be.

"The victory of a Net Neutrality supporter in the Presidential race is also a significant event though many may not know it," says Davies. "If I had to say what will have the biggest long term affect on the search industry (and in fact the Internet as a whole) it will be this win by Obama.  No matter where you stand on the issue, the victory itself paints the picture of the future of the Internet."

Mobile Search

"In 2008, we finally witnessed mobile search go mainstream," says MordComm Co-Founder Boris Mordkovich. "With the arrival of the much anticipated Apple iPhone, followed by a collaboration between Google and T-Mobile on the G1, it is becoming clear that mobile devices are going to a whole new level – and taking the Internet and the search experience, as we know it, with them. The SEM marketing community has been anticipating this for quite a while, so I think that we are well prepared to face the challenges that lie ahead."

Wrapping up

In concluding, I would like to thank all of the people mentioned in this article for providing their opinions and insight into the everchanging search industry. I am very pleased with the variety of answers, and I feel it has made for a well-rounded outlook on where the industry is heading. 2008 has been an interesting year for search, but 2009 promises to really shake things up, and you can bet we’ll be there keeping an eye on it. Then, this time next year, perhaps we can reflect on how it all really went down.

What do you think was the most significant thing to happen in the search industry in 2008? What was the biggest change from 2007 to 2008?

Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are going to get a lot more personalized moving into the future. It’s already started, but will continue to become increasingly noticeable. This raises some questions not only about SEO and ranking, but how one manages their online reputation. The fact that different people will be seeing different results in a search for your name or your company’s name is going to throw a few forks in the spokes of the online reputation management process.

SearchWiki

Google recently launched SearchWiki, a way for Google users to rearrange their own search results and vote specific results up or down, leave comments, etc. This is one element of personalized search that has some industry professionals a little worried.

"I’d say that the most significant thing to happen in the search industry in 2008 was the advent of more personalized search, and even more so, the new addition of SearchWiki showing up in Google," High Rankings CEO Jill Whalen recently told me. "It’s too soon to really know what will happen with that, but my guess is that it will cause some reputation management nightmares for many companies."

It’s going to affect how marketers help their own clients maintain positive reputations as well. WebProNews Blog Partner Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim, who created the online reputation-monitoring tool Trackur, talked a little about this with me.

"It’s certainly something to be concerned about–especially when you consider that Google hasn’t placed much constraint on its use," he explains. "For example, what’s to stop a competitor’s employees from littering SearchWiki with negative ‘reviews’ about your business? How will that be policed? Google has indicated that SearchWiki data may be included in the regular algorithm in the future, but has been somewhat vague about how companies can address falsely posted comments."

The future isn’t necessarily all bad for reputation management though.

"On the other side of the coin, we have Google’s plans to further personalize search results based upon an individuals preferences and search history," Beal tells me. "I’m intrigued by a number of possibilities here, not all of which are negative."

"First, one web site’s ‘vote down’ is another’s ‘vote up,’" he explains. "Think about it. OK, so a user could vote down your web listing, but they could just as easily vote down your competitor. Now, instead of spending endless nights worrying about how to move from #2 on Google to #1, your target customer just did the job for you–albeit confined to their search browser only."

"Secondly, let’s go with the worst case scenario and assume that a user voted down your listing in Google," Beal continues. "They would have done that anyway! OK, so now they have the option to actually vote you off the Google ‘island’ but prior to this feature, they were mentally excluding you anyway–so you’ve not lost much."

As has become popular opinion of where Internet marketing will go as a result of Google’s changes, people are going to have to start worrying less about where their site is ranked in Google, and more about analytics, and how their site is presented.

"Businesses will finally realize the vital importance of not just ‘ranking’ but also displaying a compelling TITLE and description/snippet," Beal says. "If a searcher’s finger is hovering over the voting buttons, you want to make sure that your listing is enticing and engaging. A TITLE stuffed with keywords might get you to #3 in Google, but if the guy at #8 has a really engaging offer in his TITLE–you get voted down, he gets voted up."

The truth of the matter is, nobody really knows for sure what new online reputation management strategies are going to have be implemented when things like intent-based search and personalization become the everyday norm. I would venture to say however, that Internet marketers are going to need to be savvy in the reputation management area. Perhaps more so than traditional SEO. We’ll see where it goes.

There are a few basic things that you should remember when designing a webpage. WebProNews talked with Founder and CEO of High Rankings and Co-Founder of SEMNE, Jill Whalen about what you should do when starting to design a page.

1. The first step is keyword research. You need to know what you want to highlight on your page for the search engines.

Whalen said, “You want to sort of figure out what pages you need on the site, based on what keyword phrases you find people are looking for. And from there, you can just put them into the navigation.”

2. Make a blueprint of what you think your site should look like. You can even use index cards for this. Simply write your ideas for categories and tabs that you want on the cards and then you can separate them into groups, etc, to create a map and layout of your page design.

3. Make sure your headings are bold and appear consistently in the same place on every page. Just like most things in the design stage, consistency could be the most important feature on your site.

So now the question arises as to what don’t I do on my site? Well the video gives more tips, but here are just a few quick things you shouldn’t be doing.

1. You should not try to put every link on every page.

2. Don’t open a new page up in a new window.

“You could design a menu that could not be found by the search engines, that can’t be seen at all by them. Certain Java Script menu’s would be pretty much invisible and so they wouldn’t know you had all those links, so you want to avoid them,” said Whalen of what not to do.

So the only thing left to do is to go ahead and start designing your site…and of course watch the video to gain more tips here on WebProNews.

And here are some previous articles that you can catch yourself up on site navigation and menus.

Lay off my snippet: Webmasters can prevent Google from showing certain text in the search results by using a simple "nosnippet" tag. Not that you wouldn’t want your snippets showing – just that there may be a reason for it out there somewhere.

Caching out: The "noarchive" tag stops Google from showing a cached version of a webpage.

Limited time only: Jill seemed pretty excited about a forthcoming tag from Google called "unavailable_after" which sets a self-destruct timer on page information. This is good for coupons, limited time offers, articles intended to be viewed as previews only.

A few hours earlier, I breezed through the pressroom to check my emails and sort of eavesdropped on one of them. Watching Jill stir patiently while answering age-old questions is making me nervous. Obviously I needed to come up with some better questions.

By this time, most of the conference participants are safely tucked way into one of five sessions and the pressroom I work out of is almost deserted. That’s a good thing because at any other time the pressroom is likely to be filled with the noise of a dozen writers hacking away against their deadlines, arguing with their editors, conducting interviews with sources or simply debating the finer points of where to find lunch.

What do you ask the Grande Dame of search engine optimization? To someone like Jill, what exactly constitutes an original question, one she hasn’t heard a million times before? As one of the originals in the business, Jill has been around so long her writing techniques and ideas on website marketing have served to define SEO practices.

Over the past twelve years, Jill has established two search marketing companies, HighRankings.com and Search Creative, maintained one of the most subscribed to newsletters in the business, HighRankings Advisor, and managed to maintain one of the busiest SEO/SEM forums. She is also a staple speaker at Search Engine Strategies Conferences and runs a series High Ranking SEM Seminars. In short, Jill Whalen is a busier person than most, except for today.

On this day she only has to do a bunch of interviews, sit in on a session, meet a few friends for supper and go to the Google Dance later that evening so she can add to her collection of Googlesque Tshirts. This time she is only around for a day and a half before heading to Hawaii to hang with family for the rest of the week. As a featured speaker at several Search Engine Strategies conferences, Jill has had a first hand look at how the industry has changed over the years.

"There are more media covering these shows", she says in the face of what I think is a good wolf-in-sheepish clothing grin. "There are also not as many geeks as there were before. There are more marketing people here this year."

The San Jose show is the largest annual search related conference in the world, growing larger and more diverse every year. "One of the things I like about this conference is the number of new topics being covered, more specialized niches."

Bigger shows mean bigger crowds but bigger crowds don’t necessarily make for better experiences. "This conference has grown hugely," she said, "but I really like the smaller ones like London or Toronto where it can be more of a social."

Jill suggests the rapid growth of SES conferences is indicative of overall growth in the search marketing sector and as the sector grows, she sees a realignment happening within it. "There is a greater focus on organic search at this conference," she says, "part of the fun for me is helping teach SEO through leading by example."

She is referring to the tremendous growth of her High Ranking Advisor newsletter and the High Ranking Forums she started about four years ago. "HR Forums just passed the 10,000 member mark, boasting over 200,000 posts. As for the newsletter, I honestly don’t know how many readers receive it. There are over 24,000 subscribers and 100-200 people signing up for it each week."

The maturation of the industry brings new talents and techniques to the table but, for the most part, Jill’s approach for achieving high rankings has not been radically altered or overhauled, mainly because they work. "My methods haven’t changed all that much. It still comes down to great writing and educating the client. When clients sign up with Search Creative, they know what they are going to get."

While Jill’s methods might not have changed, she sees a shift in the way larger companies are handling their own search marketing needs. "There is a bigger focus on in-house SEO." she says in measured words. "I think that in-house SEO is smart and cost effective but the job needs to be a focused one. Often SEO is treated as an additional job for someone in the IT or marketing departments. Good search marketing requires dedicated people with a large enough budget to get the job done properly."

There are also a greater number of women in the industry than ever before, a signal to Jill that the focus of the search sector is leaning towards mainstream marketing. I note there is about a 40/60 split between females and males at this conference, a figure Jill agrees with. "There aren’t as many geeks here this year," she says again. "We are seeing a 50/50 gender split at the High Rankings seminars. To me, this is great because it shows that business is starting to see search as a legitimate form of overall marketing, not just something to be dealt with by the IT department."

The growth of women in the search sector also indicates a higher standard of education in the industry as knowledge and talent now extend beyond the IT departments. "SEO is truly maturing. The education level is higher, and there is more of long-term planning involved."

Asked what clients can expect of Search Creative, Jill says a typical account is established for a one year term. Most of her clients are medium to large scale businesses, all of which require a full site audit before her staff begins its work. "I guess our clients can expect to be educated," she says, "we do a lot of long-term planning before starting any optimization work. Along with technical issues, we focus on writing great copy and site usability. We also make our recommendations on site architecture, a process that could take up to six weeks."

Like all SEO contractors, Jill has her frustrations with clients too. "It is very frustrating to see your recommendations not be implemented but that often comes when working with very large companies." She does note that as the mainstream world becomes more informed about search marketing, her clients are increasingly paying attention to the little details that make the difference in campaigns. "Our in-house seminars are working very well to help boost our clients’ overall knowledge and provide them with realistic expectations."

Generally, Jill’s clients can expect six to eight weeks of research leading to a six to twelve month campaign. "We prefer clients sign up for a full year," she says, referring to the challenges of getting newer sites recognized by Google. "A big part of our service is communicating with and educating our clients."

Educating clients, webmasters and other search marketers is high on Jill’s priority list. It can also be the most rewarding part of her job. As the organizer of the High Ranking Search Seminars, Jill holds two mini-conferences in large US cities each year, leading a touring company comprised of some of the most well known names in the business.

"A typical HR Seminar is fun," she says before listing the names of speakers. "I cover the SEO portions, Christine Churchill takes PPC, Scottie Claiborne covers Site Usability, Debra Mastaler handles Links, Karon Thackston covers Copywriting and Matt Bailey covers Analytics."

I note that Matt Bailey is the only male on the HR Seminar roster. "Matt has been traveling with us for so long, we just think of him as one of the girls", Jill says, smiling because she knows I have no option but to run with the quote. "Matt is a great guy and I love working with."

The next High Rankings Seminar will take place on October 19 and 20 at the American Airlines Training Center, midway between Dallas and Fort Worth Texas.

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Jim Hedger is the SEO Manager of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth is the result of the consolidation of BraveArt Website Management, Promotion Experts, and Phoenix Creative Works, and has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. http://www.stepforth.com/ Tel – 250-385-1190 Toll Free – 877-385-5526 Fax – 250-385-1198