First off – I’m back! Super huge thanks to April, Cassie, Brittany and Penny for contributing such great posts while I was out. It looks like they did a fantastic job keeping you all informed and engaged in the blog. My trip went well, Italy was awesome, and I popped the question to my lovely girlfriend Kristi on the trip. Luckily, she said yes (that would have been a big production to put on to get a “no”).

But enough about that, because we’ve got bigger things to talk about - namely Google’s new Universal Search.

It looks like Google has decided to throw another curve ball to search engine marketers by announcing a huge change in the way they display search results. Starting yesterday, Google started the process of integrating all of their search services (web, video, image, etc.), so that your search results could include elements of all the different search properties based on the search query. While the results of this integration are few and far between at this point, word is that the integration of “Universal Search” results showing up will increase over time, as Google continues to tweak and modify their algorithm.

To get up to date on Universal Search and what it means to Google and to you, check out these articles:

Andy Beal’s Report on Universal Search (a must read)
Search Engine Land’s Coverage
CNN’s Article on Universal Search