The State of Search Engine Optimization in 2004

A year ago, most of the discussion around search engine optimization centered on one company. In 2004, the landscape looks a little less one-sided, and a few specific developments explain why.

Yahoo dropped Google and launched its own search engine. In February 2004, Yahoo ended its results-sharing arrangement with Google and began powering its own search results, built on the technology it had acquired through Inktomi, Overture and AltaVista over the previous year. For the first time in a while, businesses now have to think seriously about two major, independently-ranked engines instead of one, and a page that ranks well on Google isn’t guaranteed to rank at all on Yahoo.

The Florida update’s aftermath is still settling. Google’s November 2003 algorithm change is still the reference point most practitioners measure changes against. Sites that recovered did so mostly by cleaning up over-optimized anchor text and thin, keyword-stuffed pages, and that cleanup work has become close to standard practice for anyone doing a serious site audit this year, not just for sites that were directly hit.

Google is preparing to go public. Google filed for its initial public offering in the spring, with the stock expected to begin trading before the year is out. Whatever the market response, the filing pulled back the curtain on Google’s finances in a way that made plain just how much of its revenue comes from search advertising, a fact that’s pushed even more businesses to take both paid and organic search seriously as core budget items rather than experiments.

Paid search and organic search are being budgeted separately now. As Google’s AdWords auction system matures and cost-per-click prices climb for competitive terms, more businesses are treating organic optimization as the lower-cost, longer-horizon counterpart to paid campaigns rather than a nice-to-have. The two are increasingly planned together rather than one being an afterthought to the other.

MSN is signaling it wants in. Microsoft has been public about developing its own search index and ranking technology rather than continuing to license results from other engines, with a launch expected sometime in the next year or two. It’s too early to plan around MSN specifically, but its entry is one more reason the “just optimize for Google” mindset of a year or two ago is starting to look shortsighted.

Local and regional search is getting more attention. With engines refining how they handle location-specific queries, businesses that serve a specific city or region are starting to see real value in making sure their address, phone number and service area are clearly and consistently represented across their site and any directory listings.

Taken together, 2004 looks like the year the search landscape stopped being a one-engine story. The practical implication for any business doing this work is straightforward: audits and strategies built entirely around Google’s rules need a second look at how they’d hold up on Yahoo’s separate index too.