The Search Engine Soap Opera
By Kalena Jordan of Web Rank Ltd
The history of search engines is a bit like the plot of a
soap opera. You know - Bo finds Hope, Bo loses Hope,
Bo finds Hope again only to discover it's actually Hope's
long lost evil twin Princess Gina and so on.
Just like the TV soaps, the search industry has a
strange and illogical history. We started with a
particular cast of search engines, new ones soon rose
up and tried to usurp market share from the originals,
some engines jumped into bed with each other, some of
the well known characters died or were killed off by the
newcomers, "good" engines decide to turn "evil" in the
grab for market share, new industry darlings were born
and so on.
Those of us who have been watching this particular
soap opera for the past few years are quite addicted to
all the plot twists and turns. The thing is, search
engines seem to have finally come full circle. Most
started up originally with a simple premise: to provide a
useful service to persons surfing the Internet; a way to
search the millions of web sites and find specific,
relevant information, 24 hours a day.
However once a few key players became heavily
trafficked, search engines became viable advertising
vehicles, attracting mega bucks from companies willing
to pay them for the privilege of displaying banner ads
to the significant number of eyeballs viewing their sites
on a daily basis. Soon everyone wanted in on the act.
New search engines developed overnight, driven mainly
by profiteers, hungry for their piece of the Dot Com
boom. The "Who's Got the Biggest Index" game began
and the searching public began to demand more
relevancy and fresher results. Under pressure from over-
inflated company valuations, the Dot Com bubble soon
burst and everyone was left covered with the sticky
mess of financial accountability.
Meanwhile, savvy webmasters had begun to study how
search engines worked in order to understand how to
structure their web site code to improve their ranking
for target search queries. A whole new industry
developed from this activity:
search engine
optimization. Webmasters who didn't have the time
or inclination to learn search engine optimization
techniques simply paid others who did. Popular
directories such as Yahoo! and LookSmart took
advantage of consumer demand for listings by
introducing the first paid submission services. Industry
players took note of the developments and introduced
commercial search engines where web site owners
could simply pay their way to the top of the rankings
rather than rely on ranking algorithms - voila! - the first
pay per click search engines were born.
It wasn't long before smaller search engines and
directories followed the lead set by the larger
directories and introduced services to assist
webmasters to ensure a place for their sites in the
search listings - either via a third party partnership with
pay per click search engines, or by introducing a new
guaranteed indexing service which became widely
referred to as Paid Inclusion. Soon it seemed everyone
was partnering with everyone else in order to get their
cut of the deals being done. Some search engines were
cannibalized by others or bought out by inexperienced
companies and sacrificed at the altar of mis-
management. Search veterans left cash poor by the
dot com bust, or unable to cope with the competition,
fell by the wayside.
At this point, you could say that the search industry
was almost exclusively driven by profit and share price.
At many of the majors, the needs of the searcher were
temporarily replaced by (or mistaken for) the needs of
the shareholders.
Continued....
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Greetings Readers!
Well it's been a few weeks since our last issue. Since
that time we have shifted our Web Rank Ltd head office
from Australia to New Zealand and have been busy with
many new clients, some of whom found us in Google as
a result of the last Update. I am pleased to say that
we now service clients in seven different countries,
adding France to our list just this week.
But enough about us! This issue of The Search Light is
dominated by industry news about Yahoo! and Google.
Both major players are enjoying profitability in a
challenging market, while poor old Inktomi is suffering.
You'll enjoy this month's feature article too. It
demonstrates how developments in the search industry
over the past few years can be compared to a plot line
from the TV soaps.
Enjoy this issue and remember to
visit our daily
Search Engine News Blog for the latest
industry news and gossip.
Till next time - wishing you high
rankings...
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- Google Wins Yahoo! Deal and Makes History
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 The fat lady has finally sung. Ending many
months of uncertainty and rumor, this week Yahoo
announced the renewal of their contract with Google
for the provision of third party crawler-based listings as
part of their search results. Full Story... | | |
| Google Launches Algorithm-Based News Service
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 One of the more interesting developments that
occurred during our blog hiatus was the BETA launching
of the Google News Service. Compiled from over 4,000
sources worldwide, Google News appears to offer the
most relevant, up-to-date news available online.Full Story... | | |
| Web Rank Small Business Special
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 Not achieving the ranking you want in the search
listings? Need step-by-step help to make your site
more search engine friendly? Got a small budget?Sounds like you need our Search Engine Compatibility
Report. For a limited time, Web Rank is offering SECR's
for less than half price at just USD 99. That's right -
$99! Tell Me More... | | |
| Inktomi Slashes Workforce by 20 Percent
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 Financial woes continue to plague Inktomi, with the
announcement this week they intend to slash their
workforce by 20 percent by the end of the year. Full Story... | | |
| New Zealand Govt. Wins Biz Domain
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 The New Zealand Government has successfully fought
for and won the domain newzealand.biz by utilizing the
World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)
disputes process after missing out in the initial ballot.
Buoyed by their success, the NZ Government is
planning to go after newzealand.com and possibly
the .net and .org versions as well. If successful, this
case could have serious ramifications and set a legal
precedent for global domain disputes.Full Story... | | |
| Yahoo Increases Revenues by 50 Percent
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 According to their third quarter financial results, Yahoo
revenues jumped by 50 percent in the past 12 months,
up from $166.1 million to $248.8 million. This is
impressive, given the demise of tech stocks and the
lack lustre market in general. It's clear that user
satisfaction and the excellent example set down by
Google have had a dramatic impact on Yahoo!'s
development strategy.Full Story (and more search engine news) | | |
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