Yahoo!, Google, LookSmart, MSN, Inktomi: The Winds of Change

The most definitive thing that can be said of the major search engines today, and their interrelationships, is that the situation seems to be in a state of flux.

For 3 straight days last week, my web searches on Yahoo! were not using Google results. Today, they are. Yesterday, I got an email stating that MSN had officially stopped using LookSmart results, but today, MSN searches are showing me LookSmart results for Directory listings.

This sort of thing makes it tough for the honest internet marketer to get a firm handle on how to approach marketing for their websites! Search engine optimization is part art, part science, but either way you need some firm data to begin with, and right now, that's just not available.

These recent fluctuations in listings seem to indicate clearly that the winds of change are blowing through both MSN and Yahoo!, and that we can expect to see some new things in the near future. Smart money is still on Inktomi to take a much more important role on both of these search engines. However, the future is not yet here.

In the meantime, what areas of our marketing do we need to adapt in light of these existing and proposed changes? Should we still try to optimize for Google, since Yahoo! is still using those results? Should we focus our attention on Inktomi, to be ready for the future? Should we still submit to LookSmart to get those coveted MSN rankings, or is it wasting money at this point?

My advice, as always, is to take a conservative approach in your work, while formulating an innovative approach for when the inevitable changes land and become permanent. A properly optimized site for Google will also be properly optimized for Inktomi and a number of other automated search engines, so don't abandon your work in that area. Even after Yahoo! and Google part company, Google rankings will still be very important, and Google will still be able to send a lot of traffic to those sites with strong rankings. Good SEO work and good websites will never loses their importance.

Whether or not to maintain your LookSmart paid inclusion is a harder question. Right now, MSN is apparently still using LookSmart, so perhaps it's a bit premature to cancel those LookSmart listings. Although having a link in a popular directory with a high Alexa ranking (such as LookSmart) does help you on Google, it's not clear whether it will help you enough to offset the cost under LookSmart's new model. In addition, as a previous post mentioned, there seem to be some billing irregularities with LookSmart accounts, and you may not be getting your money's worth. My advice would be to look at each listing on a case-by-case basis, and carefully review your account and your costs. I do believe the day will come when LookSmart will not be worth the price, under their current model, unless they develop some strong new partnerships to replace the loss of the MSN contract.

So the game as I see it is, "Hurry up and wait". Change is in the air, no doubt about it, but it will take a while before the new world map of search engines is in place, and all the boundaries established. Until then, keep your eye on the future, but keep your work in the present!

Comments

[Frank]

HI,
Is there a way for users of Msn search engine can reset its results back to blanks for each alphabet in the search engine?

I would like to have myine reset.

Thank You
Frank