A Cre8asite Forum thread named Will SERPS be pointless in the future?, Will SERPS be pointless in the future? really gets folks thinking again about the future of search. Most people look at Google's 4 product announcement as Google moving away from search and focusing on non search related items. Heck, I even made that comment here yesterday. But then you take a step back and look at what companies like Google, Yahoo (specifically) and Ask.com are doing. They are all expanding.
Let's take a look at Google specifically, and limit it to those four new products. Google Trends, ok that doesn't tell us that much, but it does show Google keeps data over time and breaks it down by demographic criteria (we all knew this). Google Gadgets with Google Desktop, well duh, they are on your desktop, serving you real time information on what you are interested in. Google Notebook, well we don't know that much about it yet, but it will supposedly allow friends to share content and notes - um, again, content, private, details about registered users. Finally we have Google Coop where I can change the SERPs that you, yes you, see on your Google results page, simply if you subscribe. Now that is in your face.
Personalized search, trusted sites, trusted sources, tracking user preferences, always signed in registered users and then tailored search results. Is SEO the same today then it was yesterday. No, it has already changed. What will happen in a year? Wow, I can't even imagine how far this will be taken. But, seriously, step back, look around you at this present time, see what the SERPs look like.
Now, go discuss over at Cre8asite Forums. :)
