Whether Yahoo cuts a deal with Microsoft or breaks off and sells the search business remains up in the air. "Yahoo's CEO will first need to learn the landscape, rather than immediately cut a deal with Microsoft," Sullivan said. "If a deal happens, it will need to go through a review, which would take two months. By this time you're in the middle of 2009."

Aside from who's doing what at search engines, tech-related trends will move beyond Web search results and page content, and into video SEO, local search engine rankings and analytics. Marketers will look for ways to dominate local search results based on demographics. Perhaps local listings will appear at the top, video in the middle and blog search results on the bottom, all on one page.

SEOing video and Flash content will also remains top of mind. While new platforms from Google and Yahoo make it easier to search on content built in Flash, the problem has not been solved. "Search on Santa Tracker and the first query result reads 'index,' because NORAD likely built a Flash file and probably didn't take into consideration that search engines can't deal with Flash," Sullivan said.

As more marketers move into search marketing to support the shift from offline to online, the industry will see a need to educate newbies who must learn to keep SEO in mind when building the sites. Paying attention to details and ensuring that every page on the Web site has a title tag and keyword-rich URLs will make it easier for search engines to crawl the site, Sullivan said.

Tackling some of these issues, SMX West in Santa Clara, Calif. on Feb. 10-12 will offer newbies and seasoned SEO professionals an overview of search engine optimization, examine branding issues and campaign integration and how images and search engines interact, delve into analytics for more seasoned professionals, and revisit some ongoing legal issues related to click fraud, trademark policies, and how to deal with people infringing on copyrights. "I don't see a whole lot that's brand new on the legal front," Sullivan said. "It's really more visiting some of the old issues like the keyword lawsuit between American Airlines and Google."

Indeed, the growing importance of analytics in the ad and marketing industries prompted Sullivan to launch a conference devoted to the topic in 2009. Earlier this week, Search Engine Land also introduced a redesigned site with a host of free and member services.

Finally, the SEO industry will go through growing pains in 2009, as people try to understand search. Sullivan said traditional marketers who enter the search field come in with the attitude that they must build demand because they are from a world where they are convincing consumers to do something. They send out messages to people who just don't want the stuff. "Trying to sell something to someone searching on Google is like preaching to the choir," he said. "They are already telling you they want it. I'm looking for cars, mortgages and travel in Spain. You just need to be there and tell them you have it."

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