According to Search Engine Watch’s Eric Enge, there are four main search engine ‘signals’ or search engine trends to watch out for in the coming year. These are:

1. Page Load Time – there are indications that Google will incorporate the time it takes for a webpage to load as a negative factor in its search engine algorithm i.e. Google will look more dimly on webpages that take a long time to load.

2. Clicks – since click data is used as a ranking signal in Google News, it may also be applied in Google’s search engine algorithm. Based on its understanding of click data (millions of clicks over millions of search listings) Google might work out a normal distribution of clicks on a given page of search results and then shift rankings based on number of clicks a given listing is expected to get.

3. Web references – since Google apparently incorporates mentions of a website (as opposed to links) in its Local search rankings, these could also start influencing rankings in general.

4. Social media – again, mentions of a website on sites such as Facebook and Twitter could be incorporated into the main search engine algorithm (in addition to the algorithm generating real-time results).

Source: Eric Enge, “Four New Signals in Search,” Search Engine Watch, Dec 1, 2009

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• Google Instant Search Boosts Google’s U.S. Search Engine Share
• Google’s Matt Cutts: We Do Use Twitter and Facebook Links in Ranking
• Google Admits MayDay Search Engine Algorithm Change
• Google Changes Search Engine Results… What’s The Damage?

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