cwnet - 6:54 pm on Dec 29, 2009 (gmt 0)

Could it be that Joe Surfer doesn’t search anymore? Or, at least, a lot less?

Looking at my stats for 2009, I am under the impression that more and more visitors are coming to my website via ‘recommendations’ through FB, Twitter and the like while SE referrals are on a steady decline.

Given that rankings are stable (as far as I can see), the total amount of visitors is rising and pageviews per visitor are declining I start to believe I am seeing the beginning of a shift of how people use the web.

Instead of having a need for information and going to a Search Engine to find a website that provides that information (and maybe browsing the website while there), could it be that more and more people rely on their social networks to point them to web resources?

And, that those recommendations point directly to the very page that has that information resulting in a satisfied user who does not browse further but goes directly back ‘home’ (to their social network).

Could it be that recommendations from real people are actually more timely, precise, accurate and generally more trustworthy than algo-driven search results?

And, that services like FB and Twitter are giving the general population the tools to exchange those recommendations with trusted ‘friends’?

If so, what are the implications for webmasters, search engines and the web at large?

Is this the reason why, for example, Google is trashing its search engine by placing Paid Listings (Adword Ads), Wikipedia, YouTube, Tripadvisor, Image results, News results, My Space and soon live Twitter results (the real reason for caffeine?) on the first result page effectively bumping generic search results to page two (out of sight)?

Is 2010 going to be the year that marks the beginning of the end of Search Engines as we know them?