Looking to 2010, webmasters will focus more on optimising their content to rank highly in Google's specific data categories, from Book Search to Patent Search. That's one prediction from web consultant Kabir Bedi, who claims "information overload" is becoming a key concern in the web search arena.

"A regular web search generally returns a series of links which users have to further refine in order to find what they are really looking for … the whole process becomes time-consuming," says India-based web designer Bedi. "That is why Google has always been looking to segregate new types of data."

Search is no longer about "simply matching queries with the keywords and delivering results accordingly", he continues, pointing out that Google's search process has grown more sophisticated and takes into account "all the synonyms, morphology elements etc" to deliver relevant content after queries are entered.

Webmasters are thus advised to "use lots of synonyms" in content, maintaining relevancy as a primary concern in content strategies. Bedi also predicts that real-time search will emerge as "a definitive force" in the coming months, noting that web users want the "scoop" on everything via the latest news and updates from portals like microblogging site Twitter.

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