How Search Engine Wars Affect Your Placement

The major search engines are in an advertising war. They are in constant battle for advertising dollars and their market share can mean the difference between life and death or millions in revenue. The question is; “how do search engine advertisement wars affect my placement”?

The answer is “A Lot”!

The manner in which Google, Yahoo and Live go about their business can not only spell life and death for them, but for your site as well. All three of the majors are large publicly traded companies that need advertisement revenue to survive. The latest market share breakdowns show a widening gap between Yahoo and Google, but also show their commitment to bleed every cent out of their advertisers.

A new report by comScore Media Metrix is stating that the 4 majors, Google, Yahoo, Live and AOL (yeah AOL, I am wondering where ASK is and why it isn’t considered a major engine) have all seen an increase in audience, but a decline in Time On Site. The exception is Google which actually had an increase, but I believe that increase is BS. They are taking into consideration search tool bar traffic as well as the new iGoogle home page. In fact this report is missing important factors such as RSS and the advertising opportunities that are now arising within feeds.

Another factor is the amount that these engines are spending on Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube (Google) and Flickr (Yahoo), but again these reporters are missing the 100 million spent on FeedBurner by Google and how their total control over RSS and the advertising that goes in the feeds will allow Google to dominate yet another market share. To add your AdSence code into your FeedBurner feed you have to be invited to do it. This is very similar to Google’s invitation only GMail ad campaign. They want to make you seem special in getting to put ads in your feed, just like you were “special” to get a GMail account.

So Google is the 500 pound gorilla in the search engine room and making their advertising space larger and larger to accomodate more marketing inventory. By doing so they are also selling out the natural or organic side of search, which is why so many of us used Google in the first place. The second that there are ads on iGoogle, that will be it for me!

All the reports and Metrics are fine for advertisers that spend big money, but how does it effect us normal people? The truth is, the advertising trends are much less relevant to a site owner than the changes in how search engine results pages (SERP’s) are being put together. All the majors have instituted advanced media, news, video and user-generated content into the SERP’s. THIS is what we need to stay focused on. How to obtain placement in the new world order of multimedia SERP’s.

Google has Universal Search, Yahoo has Search Assist, Live was created with Web 2.0 in mind (yes Microsoft actually got a leg up on the Internet for once) and ASK just unveiled its new multimedia search program. In fact you should give ASK a try when searching for news or media. Its search is in my opinion the best out there. The Teoma search algorithm is nearly as good as Google used to be, and it is very difficult to spoof Teoma the way Google can be baited and stuffed. This leads to more relevant search results on ASK then on either Google or Yahoo. I also like ASK’s ad space. It’s not so much the search engine, but their partner sites that make ASK a good buy. Excite, Bloglines, iWon, and Evite are just a few of the media spaces that are driven by Teoma.

All in all, the best thing you can do is to have as much Web 2.0 applications as possible in your Internet Presence. Social Network Marketing is not a fad, it is the future. More and more people are getting their content driven to them, rather than going out and finding it. To leverage those users, your site must have an RSS backbone and be media conscience. If your site doesn’t have a blog, get one, now! Take the time to plant your RSS feeds, articles and site. Avoid paid directories and be careful not to buy links from sites that are not relevant to your content.

Related Posts:

• Changing Face Of Google – Universal Search Explained – post about Universal search and how it will effect your website.
• Yahoo Update – Search Assist – Yahoo’s Search Assist changes the SERP’s and how users use them.
• RSS Brings The News To You – Overview of how users are having content driven to them, and not going out and searching for it.
• RSS Real Simple Syndication Overview – Everything you need to know about RSS.
• Social Network Marketing – Web 2.0 Explained – How to leverage Web 2.0 on your site.
• Search Engine Optimization and Social Network Marketing – Overview of Web 2.0 SEO and how they come together in a powerful online marketing combo.