Google updates and mobile internet impacting search marketers: Survey

Growing mobile internet use and recent changes to Google’s algorithms are having a significant impact on the search marketing industry, according to a new survey.

The SEMPO State of Search Marketing Report 2012 polled more than 900 search marketers for the biggest factors impacting the industry.

According to the survey, 47% of search marketers rated the impact of growing mobile internet use as having a highly significant impact on the industry, with a further 41% rating its impact as significant.

Google’s algorithm updates were rated as having a significant impact by 39% of marketers, with a further 48% rating the impact as significant.

At the other end of the spectrum, the merging of Bing and Yahoo! was described as “insignificant” by 63% of search marketers, with local search (41%) and video search (39%) also being rated as insignificant by most marketers.