SEM, Affiliates, and E-commerce Issues In 2005

What will the big issues be?

[skibum]

Awareness of Click Fraud Growing

It's been kept under the rug rather well thus far but the major news sites are starting to pick up on it, as will advertisers, webmasters, lawyers, and anyone else with a financial interest or $0.02 to throw into the conversation.

Will the pendulum swing back to SEO?

MSFT May Finally be in the Search Game

They're hiring, spending money, have virtually unlimited resources to go after Google. Should be a lot harder to beat Google than Netscape and most of the other companies they've steam rolled over the years.

Advertisers will beat a path to their door when they launch a PPC search program because the traffic converts but unless Google slips, its gonna be hard to win over the general public.

Google may change the AdWords affiliate policy

Big bucks at stake for everyone. What happens when those affiliates turn to SEO? Will more smaller businesses be able to compete for traffic?

Will Google loose its focus?

Lots of new paper millionaires, some real ones too, do they stay focused or move on?

Ad blocking technologies

Anti-virus software & brosers blocking ads/affiliate links, sure to have affect the affiliate space and the online advertising market as a whole. We've become accustom to rather detailed tracking capabilities, what happens to agencies, media properties, and the business who cut the checks if and when tracking capabilities decline?

What else is gonna have a big impact in 05'?

[iamlost]

* Click Fraud: Like spam an industry is growing to combat it but unless id spoofing and id theft and zombie computers can be substantially addressed this fraud will likely persist. In the short term I expect a decrease in click value equal to the perceived fraud percentage. I do not expect PPC to disappear because it remains the most direct method of broad "commission" tracking.
SEO is, imo, a separate component of SEM.

* The internet is big enough for Yahoo and Google and multiple smaller niche search services. I expect that it is big enough for MSFT too. With the example of Netscape always in front of regulators and the MS historic inability to innovate inhouse I expect MS to be a major, but not dominant, player over the next several years.

* Google is now a company, not a tech startup. Whether it can transform into an IBM "blue chip" mainstay or fade away over time will depend very much on the managers and company direction they put in place. I am very confident on the tech backend. I am somewhat concerned on the corporate philosophy/direction/management office front. The next one-to-two years will be critical. Too early to call.

* Ad-Blocking: Ad (and other) tracking has had a free ride unlike anything seen off the web. Can you imagine an ad agency tailing people about the streets noting where and how they go and what they do and buy, etc.? Welcome to real life. If such tracking is considered necessary the people being tracked may be asked to opt-in and be paid ... or other methods will be developed to provide the data required. The industry (for and against) is still manuevering - be fun to watch for the next while (I am not a player so I can be amused).

* ID theft, phishing (and other fraud), and database security will continue to be the big expensive and headline grabbers for at least the next year so far as ecommerce sites are concerned. Without user education, secure applications, secure sites/databases (!) they will continue.