New search parameters
Certainly, the wide range of devices through which we can conduct research is a determining factor: PCs, laptops, smartphones, tabletsTVs, etc. Alongside the variety of devices, there are different methods of input, from typing a word on the computer keyboard or making a request directly through voice applications such as Siri, Sherpa, Cortana or Google Now.
These innovations have moved us away from previous search formats such as "restaurant in Lisbon", to more specific parameters such as "where to eat Italian food in Lisbon" or "which is the best Italian food restaurant in Lisbon".
We can see two trends in this evolution: an increase in long tail parameters and users demanding more precision, so search engines have had to adapt and provide more relevant results.
Search engines understood that identifying keywords was not enough, and instead needed to understand how information was related, both within the same website and across the internet. This is where the most important change in the search universe occurs: a progression from familiar keywords to entities of enhanced importance. Words become concepts and search engines evolve into machines that can learn.
This co-evolution results in what we now call semantic search.