2004: The Search Engine Year
in Review
None of this is true. Surely.
January saw
wild and crazy speculation
that there would be a Google
IPO this year. Sluggish MSN
showed signs of waking up
and introduced a search beta.
This turns out to be an omen.
A world-changing social networking
tool called Orkut appeared
and everybody rushed to show
just how popular they were
by listing every man and
his dog as "friends".
Many think Orkut will be
massive! February:
Almost everyone is bored with
Orkut and no
one can remember their logins.
The press starts using the
term "Search Engine Wars",
which soon becomes rather tedious.
It is strongly rumoured by
those-in-the-know that Yahoo
will definitely"go Inktomi" soon.
Yahoo don't "go Inktomi".
Instead, Yahoo confuses the
hell out of everybody with
a cryptic pay-per-inclusion
program.
March: Bill
Gates thinks he has the answer
to search. It
lies in providing answers to
questions, like "Why is
the sky blue". Amusingly,
Google had the answer to that
question at #1, while MSN featured
an ad for a Casino. Still
does, in fact. To be fair,
the new MSN search beta does
a lot better. A plucky young "entrepreneur" tries
to extort Google for 100K or
else he'd sell his click bot
code to rouge spammers. It
came as no surprise to anyone,
apart
from the entrepreneur himself,
that he ends up in court.
April saw Overture and Google
dropping gambling ads. Car
dealers are hardest hit as
gambling affiliates put off
plans to buy that second Ferrari.
Amazon launches the very good
A9, but most people don't take
much notice. Hint: Amazon,
read the ClueTrain Manifesto
to figure out why you're not
connecting with your audience.
Gmail launches. Privacy advocates
nash teeth. Many use it for
junk subscriptions that, by
definition, aren't worth reading
anyway.
May starts
with a bang! Well, it didn't,
but some statistics
about search were released.
Apparently, "most Google,
Yahoo!, MSN and AOL users selected
a natural search result over
paid search advertisements".
Stunning. Google relaunch
Blogger. Other blogging companies
nash
their
teeth, but nothing comes of
it. Shak Khan gets a mention
at this point because if I
forget to mention him, he mentions
it to me. SearchEngineBlog.com
splashes out on a new design.
Coloured blue. People wonder
where Mr Shouty Man has gone.
Mr Shouty Man makes a comeback
later in the year due to "overwhelming" public
demand. SearchEngineBlog demonstrate
their unflinching commitment
to the work ethic by sodding
off to Rarotonga for two weeks.
June saw a more tanned and
terrific SearchEngineBlog reporting
on such important search related
developments as "The 50
coolest song parts". It
was a quiet month, however
SEW launched a discussion forum.
The shit hit the fan in July when
a SEMPO scandal erupted. Not
only were SEMPO not seen
to be doing much, but certain
board members were accused
of paying themselves quite
a lot indeed for not doing
much. And self promoting. And
failing to communicate. Just
goes to show that it doesn't
pay to get on the wrong side
of Mike Grehan. Seth Godin
pronounces that "SEO isn't
worth it". Clued-up search-oriented
webmasters snigger quietly
to themselves. Nothing to see
here. Move along.
August sees "big
changes" in
SEMPO's ability to communicate
when their hotly- anticipated
SES meeting consists almost
entirely of vendor advertisements.
You just couldn't make this
stuff up. Google prepare to
float and suggest an opening
price of $85. Everyone thinks
this is ridiculous. The price
more than doubles on the open
market. Prominent white hats
make dramatic u-turn and use
their forums to strongly advocate
cloaking. A pig flew past the
window. Hell got rather cold.
September: No one cares about
September.
October sees
a curious invite in the SearchEngineBlog
inbox.
Microsoft invite us along to
Redmond to eat their food,
drink their wine and, presumably,
say nice things about their
search engine. But first things
first - the superb SEO Roadshow
goes off in London (in September,
actually - Pedantic Editor),
thanks
to some very cool people and
an entirely free bar. Yours
truly spends his time getting
drunk, shaking a lot of hands,
and pretending to do some work.
No one, especially his wife,
is fooled. He then takes a
rather circular route to Redmond
and is pleased to note than
MS staff don't have horns growing
out of their foreheads, and
Carmina Burana isn't playing
over the sound system. There
was a lot of mist, though,
and it's really hard to get
decent beer in Seattle. And
their search engine? It's ok.
Has a lot of ground to make-up,
and I'm sure they will. Perhaps
they might even get around
to answering the "why
is the sky blue" question.
November sees
some minor world events, including
the US elections. SearchEngineBlog
favourite Threadwatch.org launches
- nice to see another blogger
not taking this search business
too seriously.
MSN roll out their search beta,
which gets mixed reviews. GoogleGuy
helpfully suggests some deconstruction
of the MSN algo. Looks like
all gloves are off on the battlefields
of the Search Engine Wars!!!
(erm...sorry). The world goes
Desktop Search mad with vendors
falling over themselves to
jump on the bandwagon and index
your personal stash. Mixed
metaphors aside, SearchEngineBlog
commits what surely must be
commercial suicide by announcing
they have "no plans" to
offer Desktop search.
December sees
many long-time admins step
down from WMW. In a move
towards greater transparency,
Google neither confirm nor
deny hiding one of their data
centers
in an unmarked secret location.
Danny Sullivan rounds off the
year with SES Chicago, which
sees the search world healthier
than ever, and looking forward
to a prosperous 2005. And pictures
of people drinking a lot.
#
Enough parody. That's it for
the year. Thanks for reading,
and
thanks
to the advertisers for advertising.
They'll be a few changes in
the new year as we shift our
focus to serve the needs of
the professional search marketer/webmasters
- don't you think there's too
many
search
engine
blogs
repeating the same search news?
- yes, it's getting rather
boring.
Back in January. Happy holidays
and have a great new year!
|
