AltaVista Overture Fast AllTheWeb Yahoo Searchquake
Search for Survivors Follows AltaVista/Overture/Fast
Searchquake - Aftershocks Continue
By Mike Banks Valentine
The ground moves with a confusing shift sideways,
followed by a bump, then a lurch and finally a
massive rumbling explosion that splits the earth
and swallows whatever is in its path on the surface.
This happens with disturbing regularity lately
and aftershocks knock formerly solid firms off
their strong foundations. Infoseek, Go.com, Direct
Hit and Excite collapse. Yahoo! swallows Inktomi,
Overture absorbs AltaVista and Fast Search in
quick succession as AskJeeves subsumed Teoma and
LookSmart encircled and enclosed WiseNut in those
previous SearchQuakes. The devastation is immediate
and stunning to those standing on what they thought
was solid ground before the quake struck and shook
the searchscape beneath them.
This shifting and rumbling landscape is not a
place for the timid. Search engine optimization
specialists [SEO's] scan and survey the wreckage
and dig through the resulting rubble to find the
surviving strategies that will pull their clients
to the top of search results and out of that rubble
to the surface. There is often a dazed stillness
that follows such natural disasters while survivors
sort out what to do now that everything has changed
with one sweeping event. SEO's are rescue workers
on scene clearing debris and rebuilding.
Admittedly, it's not all that dramatic for most
small to medium sized businesses on the web. But
it does mean that they need a professional on
the case for them keeping them abreast of changes.
The earthquake analogy probably only applies to
those deeply involved in web business, almost
as though web businesses live on the other side
of the planet from the disastrous shift in the
search landscape - jerking portal partnerships
and often disastrously disturbing other industry
alliances that had settled into working relationships.
Everyone is nervously checking to see if any damage
is done to their own partnerships and who may
be injured?
Unlike earthquakes, searchquakes seem to occur
with reasons, but still tend to be unexpected
and sudden. Directories buy up crawler-based search
engines in order to have an in-house solution
to provide backup results when unable to provide
results from the directory database. Overture's
pay-per-click engine now provides PPC results
to organic [free] search engines. Everyone wonders
what effect their purchases may have on existing
partnerships Overture maintains with search sites
that previously saw themselves as competitors
to both of these acquisition targets, Fast/AllTheWeb
and AltaVista.
Existing partners are beginning to fret that Overture
is threatening their territory of crawler-based
search. Yahoo! stated in their press release that
the paid inclusion facet of Inktomi was attractive
and contributed to that purchase. The paid inclusion
facets of both AltaVista and FastSearch through
it's partnership with Lycos are now part of Overture.
Yahoo! paid $235 million for Inktomi. Overture
will spend about that amount for both of it's
acquisitions combined. So we are looking at deals
in the search industry of nearing one-half billion
dollars! Rarefied territory above the valley of
Search Mountain!
Google previously provided back-up results to
Yahoo! and now may be dropped as a search partner
due to the perception that they are becoming competitors
with PPC and Shopping search. MSN looks warily
at Inktomi wondering whether they might be a threat.
Indeed, MSN might be the only search provider
that has failed to swallow competitors in an odd
twist that leaves them with little to offer outside
their partnerships. MSN dropped their support
of RealNames, and essentially killed them and
even though new so-called 'Navigational Keyword'
competition is heating up with players iGetNet.com,
NetWord.com and UDDI.org - the paid navigation
schemes are like bubbling mudpots compared to
volcanic activity of the webs' biggest search
properties. For more on these tiny geysers and
mudpots, view Danny Sullivan's articles below.
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/06-realnames.html
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/10-namespaces.html
It will be interesting in the long term though,
as each engine buys up competing services to become
more independent. Will any of those search properties
need each other when every one of them have their
own paid inclusion, pay-per-click, shopping search,
news search, image search, blogger search, directory,
financial channel, auto channel, auction channel,
music channel, etc. Aren't they headed back toward
the mostly failed portal model that commentators
are pointing to for the reason AltaVista failed,
the reason Yahoo! wobbles under its own sheer
size and weight, the reason they each had for
becoming more like Google?
Meanwhile, Google purchased Blogger recently in
a move that many search industry pundits are still
analyzing for its effect on the web landscape.
Whatever the result, one thing is quite apparent
in the shifting and eroding scenery of search
engines.
The conclusion can only be that search matters
on the web. It matters to all businesses that
require visibility in the ever narrowing canyons
and soaring peaks of the search landscape.
Just like the natural disaster of earthquakes,
it all seems so senseless sometimes. We'll all
dust off and move on now. But you've got to wonder
if there's an end in sight to the ever shifting
territorial lines in this treacherous SearchQuake
ridden terrain. ;-)
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Mike Banks Valentine is a Search Engine Optimizer
specializing in ethical small business SEO
http://SEOptimism.com/
Search Engine Placement for Small Business
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