Internet Search Consolidations are Disturbing

Less players, rising prices- this can only be bad

[martinibuster]

I saw a patent application by MS from February where they patented a system for searching a business directory for a surfer- sounds awfully like something they'd do with Looksmart.

When you read the news it sounds like everybody's waiting for more shoes to drop. I've even read speculation about a Google paid inclusion program. Where is all this heading? When will the madness end?!
:)

I have to say I'm looking at this with a little nervousness because as the amount of players decrease, so goes the competition. And with less competition the companies are free to raise their prices.

In the future I see more paid inclusion programs, more advertising "opportunitites"- Everybody is going to be shaking me down for a bigger piece of my pie. The cost of promoting a web site is sure to rise.

[kanetrain]

Well...I agree with you...kind of, but have you thought about the following?

1.But what about their pie? If a SE can make more money doing something differently, shouldn't they have the right to do that?

2. Paid inclusion is nice in a lot of ways because you get guaranteed indexing. Paid Inclusion forces the search engines to be accountable. If you are dropped from Google now, what recourse do you have? Could it be beneificial to have the ability to call them on the phone and say "hey, what's going on here?"

3. The price of promoting a website is going up, but the price of building it, hosting it, and maintainging it is going down. Compare all of those expenses (design, web hosting, software integration etc) to prices duing the peak of the dotcom craze. Search Engines were all free, but those other expenses ate away a lot of $.