Iain MacAulay
So SEO is becoming a dying industry? Well not if the figures issued by the Pew Internet and American life Project are to be believed.
The Pew organisation gives independent research to study the impact that the Internet has on families, communities, health, education, civic and political life and on the work place.
Yes, the figures do relate to the States but, sooner or later there will be figures for Britain and undoubtedly they will be proportionately similar.
So what enlightenment do they bestow on us mere mortals across the pond?
Well 1 in 4 American Internet users (which equates to 33 million) use search engines to find information on a typical US day. Regardless of whatever they search for.
Pew found that entering a query into a search engine was the most popular way of procuring information, with 'MSN' being top dog engine with 43 million unique users averaging 5.9 minutes per user compared to the most used general search engine 'Google' who record 36 million unique visitors spending an average of 25.9 minutes per user.
Yahoo came in second with 38 million unique users who spend 10.8 minutes per user.
The report also states that 85% of users have 'ever' used a search engine to find information with only the sending or reading of emails outranking search engine queries as a main online activity. Men are more likely to use an engine than women (33% to 25%) College graduates rank higher than high school graduates (39% to 20%) and users who have been online longer than 3 years over people who have had access for only six months (39% to 14%).
The report continues by taking four kinds of information search (tracking down people, health advice, government services and religious information) and comparing the percentages that these searches are carried out between differing demographics of e-citizens.
The main point that this report shows is that search engine use is not going to disappear it is only increasing, and what we may see is more engines appearing offering specific types of information search as more and more people find their way to using and understanding search engines. Everyone wants their information accessed and their site hit, and it is only going to make SEO more important for the serious minded web master who deems his site as important and an alternative to the millions of other sites that are clamouring for attention. As more and more people get on line and learn what search engines can do they will drive the industry forward as they look for and ask for, information to be displayed in different ways.
http://www.pewinternet.org / reports / toc.asp?Report=64
