The Future of Search

Participants were asked to share their predictions of how the following factors might change (in terms of their impact on Google's ranking algorithm) over the next 12 months.

Comments on the Future of Search

Social signals from Google+ will become more and more relevant over the next 12 months. Eventually Google+ will take equal, if not more, prominence than Facebook due to its position at the cross-section of search and social.

Dev Basu

Some of the research papers from universities and/or search engines have shown them testing things like how long the window is in focus, scrolling on a page, printing from a page, and-what I think is the most interesting one (used for testing a page's credibility)-automating the process of identifying topical experts and giving weight to the pages they visit.

Laura Lippay

Don't believe the hype of social and G+. They will increase in importance, but certainly not replace more traditional offsite factors. Inbound links and offsite equity will continue to be highly influential to search relevance when validated by other factors. Expect these offsite equity trust and authority factors to maintain a large portion of the importance that they've always held as the foundation of the Google algorithm.

Todd Malicoat
1.Overall Algorithm 2.Domain Level Brand Metrics 3.Domain Level Keyword-Agnostic Features 4.Domain Level Keyword Usage 5.Domain Level Link Authority Metrics 6.Page Level Keyword-Agnostic Features 7.Page Level Keyword Usage 8.Page Level Social Metrics 9.Page Level Link-Based Features 10.The Future of Search