Universal Search Killing the Google Business Model

Written by Pablo Palatnik on March 18, 2008

I attended the Orion Panel at SES New York today and I have to say, it blew my mind as far as what I heard and thought about. For the first time, I thought about the impact on search marketing (both organic and paid) universal search has had on searchers behavior.

(not a PalatnikFactor.com image)

The panel consisted of:

• John Battelle, Founder/Chairman/CEO, Federated Media
• James Lamberti, Senior Vice President, Search and Media, comScore, Inc
• Lyndsay Menzies, Managing Director, Big Mouth Media
• Jack Menzel, PM for Universal Search, Google

The session started out by James Lamberti of Comscore showing statistics that have only been shared for the first time ever today at SES about the impact of universal search on the Google SERP’s and how people are interacting and clicking on with video, images, and so fourth now showing in the SERPs.

What is happening? People are clicking on videos, images, and other universal search results in increasing numbers and paid search ads are showing less and less. John Battelle was very controversial in his thoughts and I would say had some great arguments to Jack Menzel of Google about how universal search is changing not only search behavior, but the way Google monetizes its SERPs and where it will go with less paid search ads showing.

John Battelle argued that the Google business model, “10 blue link page” giving searchers results and driving them to pages around the web is now changing to a hub of video, images, and more. Maybe true, but as Mike Grehan commented (moderator along with Kevin Ryan,) said it is just how Google, going from a SERP with 10 blue links, would eventually evolve, its how the web is evolving and how search behavior is evolving.

The organic game is changing and you, as a company who is trying to rank organically, have to adapt to universal change because it is not going anywhere. Are you doing anything with YouTube? Google Video?

Will universal search hurt paid search? Are universal search results relevant or mostly made of crap with user-generated content uploading crap on the net?

These are all questions that are coming to question and will be more and more transparent with time.