2009 - Top Search Engines

Strategies for ranking well in "natural," or "organic," search engine listings are quite different from those used in paid search engine advertising. Search engine optimization (SEO) specifically concerns natural search results. A viable strategy to promote a client site not only to search engines but also to the user base (and, in turn, back the engines via user generated content, blogs, etc.) is a valuable commodity -- so much so that it expands the influence of SEO.

Below is a listing of the top search engines for 2009:

2009	Google	Yahoo!	MSN/Live	Ask	Total
2009 03	72.13%	16.56%	5.50%	4.02%	98.21%
2009 02	72.11%	17.52%	5.55%	3.47%	98.65%

No matter how the search engines create, tweak, or change functionality, the game will remain the same for an agency SEO: increase visibility of the client. No matter how it may change, 2009 is sure to be another interesting year for search. Optimization must always be performed on Web site pages that reside on your domain. It should never be performed on a new microsite hosted on an SEO firm's server.