What’s Happening in Search?

Mobile adoption has significantly influenced the evolution in search, and marketers need to take note. For the first time ever, more Americans accessed the Internet using mobile devices than PCs. According to comScore, smartphone and tablet devices accounted for 55% of Internet usage from apps and mobile browsers. Access to information is now only a couple taps away and users are demanding that search engines provide answers as quickly as possible.

To meet such high expectations, semantic technology has helped search engines better understand natural language and the intent behind a user’s search queries. Users are now searching in long form questions like “how do you change the oil in a 2014 Toyota Corolla” instead of just “oil change.” This is why keyword matching is becoming less important, due to its limited ability to understand context.

One example of an evolved search engine is Google. With its latest Hummingbird update, Google mad semantic technology mainstream. Hummingbird deciphers the meaning behind a query and offer results that match user’s intent. Google also increased the scope of its Knowledge Graph results, which offers users additional information on the right side of the search results page, often providing images and facts that are applicable to a search.

Similarly, social media search is evolving. Facebook announced that its new Graph Search is equipped with semantic search technology so that users can find the connections they want more easily, and so advertisers can better understand a user’s preference. Graph Search also enables accurate targeting of marketing since it can make new connections and provide new deeper data based on users’ activities. 

Enhanced semantic technology in search is good news for marketers as it expands opportunities and improves perception of a consumer’s intent. The savviest of marketers will be thinking about quality content because marketing campaigns can drill down to finer and finer demographic sectors based on intent. They will also be thinking about effective distribution since simply buying a paid search space on Google, Yahoo and Bing is not going to cut it anymore. Ads must be smarter, must be integrated amongst all social media sites and available across all platforms as 35 percent of searches occur outside of search engines.

The evolution in search will continue, but the future possibilities are endless for those who incorporate the new capabilities of semantic technology in their digital marketing strategies.