• by Ross Fadner , March 3, 2004

The future of search advertising and marketing will revolve around personalization, localization, and content integration, according to representatives from search kingpins Google, Yahoo!, America Online, and AskJeeves, who gathered Wednesday at the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo in New York City. The evolution of search also includes broadband, which will enable the transformation of the search engine from a mere navigation tool into its own entertainment channel.

"The way we search now is for facts," said Craig Nevill-Manning, senior research scientist, Google. "The future will bring an added element of nuance."

Tim Cadogan, vice president, Yahoo! Search, added that such nuances will include personalized search results in terms of content integration. "The future is about making the way we search a little more explicit," he said. Whereas a teenager searching for information about celebrities might want to see photos, chat, and video, a researcher would rather see a list of relevant links. Depending on the context, search queries have the potential to yield all kinds of content--not just links.

"Personalizing the search interface is as important as personalizing results," said Google's Nevill-Manning. "Data has been segregated into so many different searches ... this is a big surprise to users," he added. Google believes that the more results are combined, the less confusing it will be for the user. Nevill-Manning noted that despite all the science that goes into refining the accuracy and breadth of search, "results may still never have that 'aha' moment" of an exact match every time."

Search advertising is one area in particular that stands to benefit from more sensitive personalization and localization. In this way, "search advertising can also be an extremely valuable user proposition," said Gerry Campbell, general manager, search and navigation, America Online. Campbell underscored the difficulty one can have using organic search only. He uses the example of searching for a specific hotel, which is a popular travel category query that seldom returns an exact match. In this case, paid inclusion or sponsored links would return the exactly what the consumer is looking for.

Yahoo!'s Cadogan noted that the primary objective with search is to make it as convenient and relevant as possible for the user. "Our job is to take the content and get it in front of the user, whether the content is commercial or non-commercial."

Google, which does not sell paid inclusion packages, contended that users appreciate having commercial messages clearly marked. "Just as it's important to separate church and state, it's important to separate paid from natural results," Nevill-Manning said, adding that you can never be sure a search engine is giving preference to paid inclusion affiliates. Yahoo!'s Cadogan immediately retorted that Yahoo!'s search results are ranked only in terms of their relevance to the user. Yahoo! Tuesday debuted a paid inclusion program.

According to AOL's Campbell, "we may see a reformulation or reinvention of the way ad programs work. Yahoo!'s Overture, for example, has a profitable, return-on-investment-based model ... it will be up to the industry to bring a full suite of marketing mix objectives," he said.