• by Tameka Kee , November 29, 2007

1. "No Google-Killer will emerge," says Greg Sterling, founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence.

2. But what about Yahoo? "The company has shown evidence of a turnaround but needs to show more momentum," says Sterling. "If it fails to do that we could see a major strategic investor or buyers, such as AT&T, come into view."

3. Get ready for FLASHier SEO. "Now that sIFR (Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) technology has the blessings of Google, and we see greater multimedia content on the Web, I believe that we will see more developers using this technique to build search engine friendly Flash sites," says Natasha Robinson, SEO Manager at Fox Interactive Media.

4. "Video search will become more about discovery than about 'search,' given that users are typically in browse mode when consuming entertainment," says Chase Norlin, CEO of Pixsy. "Expect more personalization of video search results and new types of alerting systems for notifying users of content they're interested in."

5. The engines have been falling behind start-ups like Blinkx, Viewdle and others in terms of their ability to index videos and make them easily searchable, according to the team at 360i. "Expect the tables to turn in the engines' favor, even as the start-ups keep innovating."

6. "Search will drive mobile Internet use. This was the year of the iPhone, but most people who search on PDAs still go directly to Google, Yahoo or Microsoft instead of through carriers' walled gardens," says Jeff Pruitt, executive vice president of search at iCrossing.

7. Exchange networks like Right Media Exchange and AdECN will become utilized by more and more search marketers allowing for a further integration of Search and Display. Look for Yahoo to finally integrate its display networks into a self service product similar to Google's AdSense. Marketers have been waiting a long time to buy banner ads at a price that the market dictates rather than sales people.

8. "Local search gets specific and becomes better than the Yellow Pages," says Scott Dunlap, CEO of NearbyNow. "One of the big reasons that local has not hit its stride is that you couldn't search for anything specific, and had to rely on searching for store names. But thanks to a number of companies like Wal-Mart and Circuit City getting their local inventory online and a host of new companies like NearbyNow and Krillion making it easy to get inventory online - you can now search for a specific product. This is going to make local explode in 2008, as users begin to expect it."

9.  Privacy issues will not go away. For some users, their search histories, e-mails, and site visits all reside with one company," says Pruitt. "And if Google has its way, it could also have access to your phone usage." 

10. This is going to be the year of landing page optimization. "Web analytics tools have been and will continue to be revamped to provide much more insight into a Web site's conversion metrics," says Ben Kirshner, founder and CEO of Elite SEM. "Landing page optimization has been a big hit ever since companies like X1 have come onto the scene. The problem has been, up until now, it has only been affordable for the larger companies."