In recent news, larger megalithic websites like Google, MSN and Yahoo! have been losing traffic and web presence to smaller more niche oriented sites with focused user bases. We’re already seeing a shift in attitude of the larger sites as they make moves to harness the marketing power of millions of individual websites and stop trying to draw traffic away from them.
One program poised to lead the way in this Internet revolution is Google’s widely disparaged AdSense program. Google is currently the #1 search engine and serves more than 50% of Internet search engine traffic. If it were to monopolize the search engine market and double in size to 100%, where would it go from there? Google has already addressed this issue by instituting their AdSense program that allows their company to have presence and control over not one, but millions of websites.
This process of diversification is facilitated by new web standards, RSS and XML feeds, and open source community software. As it becomes easier to establish an online presence, individual markets become more focused and competitive.
If you haven’t carved out your own place on the net, you are losing your opportunities. The good niches are going fast and the rest won’t be around forever. With such emphasis placed on the age of a website and the effort it takes to establish one, it will be difficult for newcomers to plant a foothold and make an impact further down the line.