Merry Christmas to all 3 of you who read my blog. I hope you all enjoy what I’m sure is a well deserved break, a Merry Christmas if you celebrate Christmas as I do and have a blessed new year.

Now, where would we be without forecasts for the new year and what might arise. As any good SEO would I turned to Google rather than think for myself and looked at the first result for search predictions 2009. Who knew Craig & Janes world predictions for 2009 would be #1. From them amongst other things including Victoria Beckham getting pregnant and many top companies going bust, there was nothing related to search other than what Im sure will be searches, if nothing else.

Moving further up the tree I found some digital marketing predictions. Some interesting takes on this included:

  • Twitter providing unprecedented access to corporate personnel
  • Listening programs through social media to “feel the pulse”
  • Having less but more meaningful digital friends (quality v quantity)
  • That social networks will be leveraged with the current budget squeeze

OK, enough nonsense, maybe lets try the proverbial horses mouth, Mr Cutts from Google himself. He reckons in 2009:

  • Pay less attention to ranking
  • Universal search will continue to expand
  • That there will be improved indexing of engagement objects, specifically video

As Bruce Clay has also reiterated, analytics will become increasingly important, and after all, has always been the true measure of success. Is your traffic going up? And of course lets see what the shiny new Google spider brings forth in the new year when engagement objects become more integrated with the ranking algorithms.

Don’t brace yourself though, from past experience Google Australia is highly cautious with search results More >