Personalised results pages could change online marketing

The future of online marketing is getting personal, according to one industry commentator.

Chris Crum explained on WebProNews that releases such as Google’s SearchWiki could be behind these changes.

The tool allows users to personalise their search results, vote them up or down and write comments on links for other people to see.

According to Mr Crum, this means that SearchWiki “raises some questions not only about SEO and ranking, but how one manages their online reputation”.

He continued: “The fact that different people will be seeing different results in a search for your name or your company’s name is going to throw a few forks in the spokes of the online reputation management process.”

It isn’t just Google that’s been changing the nature of its results page. Microsoft’s Live Search will in future flag sites suspected of hosting malware, which could further Mr Crum’s concerns over online reputation.

He concluded by saying that whatever happens in the future, “internet marketers are going to need to be savvy in the reputation management area”.