Lucky Seven: Our 7th Year Covering Search

Can you believe it? Seven years of covering search, search engines, search marketing, Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask on this blog. Never really taking an extended break, never hardly having something new or interesting to share. Who would have known that on December 2nd, 2003, my notebook on search topics would have been a continuous source of search knowledge seven years later?

I often like to summarize the past year’s topics I covered below. I do this instead of writing the summary before New Years, like many other sites do.

Come & Gone:
Yes, search engines have come and gone. Search forums have come and gone. SEO personalities have come and gone. But search and the importance of search has continued to grow. People, marketers, advertisers, businesses, and families have become dependent on search. Now, seven years later, we have two – Google and Bing. Back when I started, Yahoo wasn’t a search engine and now they aren’t a search engine again. Alta Vista, who? Blekko the next Google killer or next Cuil? Ask Jeeves, Teoma, Ask.com and now Ask Q&A site. So much has happened over the years, it is hard to summarize it all.

Top Topics of 2010:
If I had to highlight the most significant topics I covered in the past year, I would have to say they include:
Google May Day
Google Caffeine
Google Instant
Google Jazz
Yahoo & Bing Migration
Real Time & Social

The Google May Day algorithm, which kicked off in late April but named May Day was the largest algorithm update on 2010. Webmasters and SEOs are still coming to grips with the May Day update. Google Caffeine is often confused with the May Day update, launching sometime around the same time as May Day but being in test mode for around a year. Caffeine was an infrastructure change on how Google crawls web pages and stores that data in their indexes. While May Day has an impact on rankings, Caffeine’s intent was not to have a ranking impact. Of course, who would forget the Google Instant launch, which replaced the controversial Jazz interface on some level. Instant shows search results as you type, Jazz (nicknamed) gave additional search filters and a more colorful feel for the Google search results.

No one would argue, 2010 was the year Yahoo Search and Ask.com failed. Yahoo made a deal with Microsoft that closed at the end of 2009 and in 2010, Bing began powered Yahoo’s search results and search ads in the US and Canada. Ask.com announced this year they are getting out of the search business and going completely Q&A. Bing has made some nice strides and it is good to see, but I do hate to see only two main players in the search space now. Google and Bing.

Finally, search in the past five years or so has been about links and content. But now it is quickly turning into social and real time. Who you are friends with online, what real time stuff is going on – that is playing a huge role in the ranking algorithms. Google and Bing both are looking at your social graph, your friends preferences and your preferences, either search related or other and using that to rank pages. Real time search has changed the landscape of how fast content gets indexed and what results show at the top of the results.

So 2010 was about Google May Day, Caffeine, Instant, Jazz, Real Time and Social. It will also be known for the failure of Yahoo and Ask in the search space.

New Look & Features:
As I mentioned, we have a brand new design and content management system live. We have used Movable Type since we launched this site. But there were many limitations. So seven years later, I decided to launch a new design with a custom brewed content management system. This way I can do whatever I want, feature wise, on this site. The new design helps highlight the top stories, gives you more detailed navigation and browsing through our archives, highlights my weekly video recap, is much faster, has better commenting support, better sharing features and so much more. I’d love your feedback, but leave it over in this blog post.

Top Stories of 2010:

Yes, I highlighted the key topics of 2010. But here are links by category to our most important stories of 2010. I am sure I missed some, but hopefully this is deep enough. Here they are:

Google UI

Google Instant: Predictions Were Right
Page Previews Officially Added To Google Search Results
Google Blue Triangle Arrow – An Instant Feature
Google’s Realtime Counter & Shared By In Web Search Results
Google Thinks Some Searches Are Worth A Single Domain Of Results
Google Won’t Admit Wrong: Shows More Results From Single Domain But Compact Style
Webmasters Complain Over New Google Image Design
Google Gives Real Time Search A Home & More Features
Google Showing Related Brands, Stores & Types In Results
Official: Google Changes AdWords Color to Pale Purple
Google Gives Dictionary.com, Answers.com, Merriam-Webster & The Free Dictionary Top Real Estate
Google News Redesign Now Live : Do You Like It?
Google Makes Drastic Change To User Interface, Many Hate It
Google’s Brand Push Is Officially Here: Brand Refinements
Google Search Suggestions More Local & Auto Corrects More Search Queries
Good, Google Killed SearchWiki, Adds Stars
Google Jazz Slightly Updates It’s Look
Google’s Blue Interface (AKA Jazz) Being Seen By More Searchers
Google Images Trying Bing’s “Infinite Scroll”?
SEOs Freak Out: Google To Personalize All Search Results