Search Marketing Crib Sheet

[mandy]

The evolution of search has been described in terms of binary computer stages and has encompassed a number of dynamic changes over the past 13 years. Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan summarized the progression of search in his keynote at SMX-West 2008 as follows.

    * Search 1.0: Location and frequency of terms on the page -- 1994-1998
    * Search 2.0: Off-page factors: PageRank and anchor text -- 1998-2008
    * Search 3.0: Blended search -- 2007-2008
    * Search 4.0: Personalized and social search -- 2007-2008

Search progress can also be described in terms of algorithm development:

  1. Text Phase: Algorithms used the location and frequency of keywords on the page for ranking results. (1994 to 1998).
  2. Link Phase: Algorithms focused more on off-page factors due to Google PageRank. Linking and anchor text became important for ranking results. (1998 to present).
  3. Social Phase: Algorithms include past history and clickstream data; universal results include vertical databases (2007 to present).
  4. Behavior Phase: Algorithms to include user intent (2008 and beyond).

full 7 page article: http://imediaconnection.com/content/19721.asp