According to Chris Sherman V.P. and editor of Searchenginewatch.com, “algorithmic search has plateaued and that humans are still better at creating a more relevant search system.” He stated at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose a few weeks back, The popularity of social search, is based on the desire to listen to and give credence to our piers, as social search is powered by the wisdom of crowds. Chris Sherman of went on to intimate, the best solution will be a combination of both algorithms and social search. “This will lend to the creation of ‘trust networks’ and an increased level of personalization”.

If you limit yourself to the traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with the big three, Google, MSN and Yahoo, and even through in a little Ask.com, you are only hitting one segment of the potential search market, though it currently is a major segment. Social search is the future. Search engines are going to be the portal to find the smaller niche web portals that users will need.

Yahoo currently has several of the best examples. If you are photo buff, and want to post your photos of interesting shots, or you just want to search for photos of an area, service, product or just about anything else, Flickr may be just right for you. This is a site where users can post, search and discuss photos. There is a rating system and if the photo is rated highly enough you may even find it on the Yahoo main search page.

Another prime example is all the question and answer sites. Again, Yahoo leads the pack here, with their Yahoo answers program. Registered users can post a question and usually with in minutes they will be provided with several answers from the community. If you have a specific question this is the place to go and find out the answer. Moreover, if you have the question, odds are someone else already asked it and the answers are waiting for you. This is what I envisioned Ask Jeeves was originally going to be.

Then there are the all encompassing networks which include shared book marking, photo uploads, friend networks and more on sites such as Myspace.com and facebook.com. The messages to take from this, SEO & SEM are but two aspects of a solid online marketing campaign, and if you ignore social search, you are going to miss the boat.