Search just got really interesting

• Tweet

• Tweet

Those of you who have SEO’d your website to the nth degree might have to start rethinking that strategy. Hot on the heels of Microsoft introducing Bing, Facebook acquired FriendFeed and then Google brings out Caffeine. If none of these names are familiar then here’s a run down:

Bing is Microsoft’s tilt at Google’s search market. It includes a images and video. My colleague Mary Jo Foley has run a few tests and believes:

The whole Bing page feels more like a site optimized to sell users something: Moby MP3 downloads, ringtones, posters, t-shirts. With Caffeine, video links are fourth on the page. News and blog posts about Moby are a little further down. On Bing, news and blog links are nowhere to be found on the first page of results.

Right now, Bing has the look and feel of a consumer oriented search facility. That’s fine but it is gaining popularity, even among those who are die hard Google fans. Gary Turner, Xero’s newly minted UK MD had this to say:

It feels better, it looks better and it works much, much better than its predecessors. I don’t know who found the secret sauce that was missing for so long, but I think Bing pretty much nails search to the extent that I’m no longer falling back to Google to find things. Evidenced by the generally good karma that surrounded its launch and which still persists today, I would estimate that my positive experience is not a solitary one.

Enter Caffeine, Google’s new search engine. From Mary Jo:

Bing, the revamped Live Search, included a number of user-interface changes, as well as tweaks to the underlying Microsoft search algorithm. The Caffeine test site — which anyone can try themselves starting August 10 — doesn’t offer any kind of noticeable UI tweaks. It does, however, change the way results are ranked.

I’m not so sure. I ran a test using comparegoogle.com with the term ICAEW. Sure – there were some differences but I’m not convinced they were that noticeable. At least at first view: Check the image below and see what you think: (apologies for the small size)

But then check out the next set of results:

If my anecdotal evidence is anything to go by, people tend to concentrate on the upper part of the screen. That would suggest that in Caffeine, there hasn’t been that much change to the algorithm or if there has then it doesn’t produce a starkly different result for sites that are text heavy. On the other hand, if you scroll through search results at least to the bottom of the first 10, then you might be drawn to information that has been upranked (is that a word?) What if that means you miss something that is relevant? What if as site owner you have optimised for the first page but other items are ranked more highly under Caffeine?

But then the picture changes again when considering sites with rich media:

Search Engine Land did a side-by-side comparison of a search for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” using the old and new Google engines. They found the new Google infrastructure returned video and news results midway down the page. The current Google search system, however, returned news at the top, video in the middle, and images at the bottom of the page

Evidence is emerging that video and other forms of rich media are proving attractive. That would suggest a site that does a lot of video story telling could easily rank well under Bing and Caffeine but maybe not so well under Google Decaf. It could also mean that sites with rich media that are more selling focused could do very well under Bing. On the basis of recent work I’ve done in this area, video is providing much richer responses even though less people may be viewing the content. That means there is an uplift in quality of interaction which is what we should all be striving towards.

This has huge implications for site design and SEO but it is far from clear exactly what this means.

In between all this, Facebook acquired the conversational tool – or rather the development team – of FriendFeed. Facebook has made clear that it intends to ramp up its search capability and what better way to do so than snag 11 ex-Google rockstars who were, until yesterday, building out FriendFeed? That brings yet another dimension to the equation. If you’re a Facebook fan then what will you do to optimize your presence there? Will that be feasible?

As I said at the top of the post – search just got a lot more interesting. Check out Mary Jo’s full post as she is looking for thoughts on the differences people perceive when applying search terms. More important: what do you think? Will this fundamentally change your web strategies? How about working with rich media? Is that something you think is unlikely to apply to you?

Endnote: I posted something almost identical at ITCounts. I’ve pulled it into here as well because this has many implications for professionals services businesses. If nothing else it means sites will need optimizing for both Bing and Caffeine. How will that work out? I don’t have a clue but hopefully some of the smart SEO types will provide answers.

Update: for the avoidance of doubt about Bing – check out this post from Seeking Alpha and the offers Microsoft is prepared to throw your way.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google’s Caffeine: A jolt to search rankings? (news.cnet.com)
• Google Gets Faster, Less Spammy With Revamped Search Engine (webmonkey.com)
• Facebook… The Search Engine? (blogs.wsj.com)
• The New Search War: Google vs Facebook (mashable.com)
• 10 random thoughts on FriendFeed acquisition by Facebook (ouriel.typepad.com)