Every so often it helps to take a step back from your industry so you can figure out where it is and where it’s going. The search industry is no exception. I’ve spotted some interesting issues and trends that I’d like to share with you. Finding a way to make use of these trends could help you in the long term.
Some of these were brought to mind thanks to a graduate student from Arizona. He was working on an article covering users’ views of the industry, saw my work, and figured I might have something useful to say. A little over half an hour of entertaining discussion later, I’d given him plenty of material, so it seems fair to me that I ended up with at least one article idea out of it.
One of the questions he asked me concerned the plethora of search engines online. Sure, there are three major search engines now, but there are tons of niche engines out there. Will there be more consolidation in the field, or more niche search engines, or what?
It seems to me that there will be some of both. Individual niche engines will come and go, but there will always be niche engines of one kind or another. If Alt Search Engines can cover the world’s first skin care search engine, and there is demand for that sort of thing, you can bet this part of the field isn’t going away or about to be eaten by Google.
Perhaps the best analogy is to compare the search field to the wide topic of medicine and health. For most of your problems, you’ll go to a general practitioner or family doctor. If your regular doctor sees that your problem is outside of his normal area(s) of expertise, however, he’ll refer you to a specialist. Ideally, returning to search, this is when you would leave Google and go to a site like WebMD or any of the other specialty search engines that cover your area of interest.
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