SMX West 2008 Comments

I'm posting this from sunny Santa Clara, CA from the Search Marketing Expo West. Here are a few noteworthy highlights:

1. Blended Search: search engines are trying to make all search results stem from the search box for users. Rather than having to go to Google images, you simply search on a term and Google works to be smart enough to know that the search term also happens to match pictures and presents those in results 'blended' with natural search results - this is happening with books, news, blogs, video and other content.

2. Microhoo - merger between Microsoft & Yahoo - analysts seem to believe the deal with eventually go through, but not until late 2009 or early 2010 because of wagering on purchase price, then government legislation involvement - bottom line, doesn't really matter because people will still use Google as their preferred search engine and soon after the M&Y merger goes through, it'll take 6-12 months for them to get organized, meanwhile Googs will be rocking along on new search innovations to even further their lead...

People at the event on Tuesday mentioned that Google's biggest competitor is their own natural search results competing with their paid search results - their stock fell this week because research found the PPC ads weren't getting clicked nearly as much as organic (however, PPC is going to become more important - think about blended search - more content in search results, pushes natural listings to page 2...).

They also say that natural search is good, but it's not as good as PPC because the advertiser has control over where their search results appear, what listing they show and which page they bring the visitor too. Googs says natural search is their bread and butter, and "it ain't goin' nowhere."

- Nathan