The Evolution of Search
Search engines are continuously changing and developing their algorithms to provide the most relevant, useful and informative results for users.
Personally, I welcomed the wave of Google updates wholeheartedly. Not only does the fact search engines are becoming more intelligent force marketers to up their games, but new updates to the algorithms also help level the playing field.
If we go back only a short while, search engine results pages (SERPs for short) were dominated by the domains with the biggest budgets. In other words, they had the money to buy their way to the top. Thankfully, Google modified their algorithm to identify and penalise domains that were “gaming” the formula. They did this with two updates – “Google Panda” and “Google Penguin”. Big budgets were effectively neutralised.
These fundamental algorithm updates gave domains the opportunity to rank well if they adopted a more creative, innovative approach; serving useful and relevant information to end users. This was a significant – and logical – step. But it’s nothing compared to what’s next.
The evolution of Search is driven by the progression of technology; more precisely, the advancement of mobile technology. The future of search is looking very much like the one depicted in sci-fi movies such as Minority Report. It seems search is slowly making Sergey Brin’s vision a reality.
“My vision when we started Google 15 years ago was that eventually you wouldn’t have to have a search query at all. You’d just have information come to you as you needed it.” – Sergey Brin, Google
To achieve Sergey’s vision in full we need two components – “personalisation” and “context”. Effectively, we need to move from a web search to a contextual search. Localisation will probably play a big part in this evolution. The evidence of this transition is available to us now with updates like, “hummingbird” and “rank brain”.
“We’ve been working on an intelligent model — in geek-speak, a ‘graph’ — that understands real-world entities and their relationships to one another: things, not strings.” – Google Official Blog
There’s no getting away from it – Google is becoming an intelligent learning machine capable of understanding conversation and the meaning of search queries. It’s moved way beyond just matching a few words. Now it’s all about understanding and learning what the users need and providing the information instantly.
For a more detailed insight on what the future holds for Search, check out this great video of Marcus Tandler speaking at TEDxMünchen.