With the start of a new year, Google plans on releasing new elements that will change the way online marketing firms and businesses use web marketing. Along with altering their method for search page results, Google is also revamping its crawler so that it’s more efficient at pulling information from web pages. While that may seem great,and it certainly is for people using Google searches, there are some changes coming up that will make gathering information more difficult for online marketing firms, webmasters, and companies.

Now let’s talk about the good that Google has waiting for 2012. A useful thing for everyone is that search results will be more direct, especially if the searcher asks a question. Google plans on adding direct answers to these questions on their search results page, along with a listing of websites that answer that question, in order to make finding date much faster and easier. In a sense, it’s like they are automatically including the “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature as a visible result for people to click on and read more. They also desire that websites become better structured with encoded metadata. By providing webmasters and online marketing firms with the ways to better structure their websites, then they will rank better in Google searches while Google will have better access to all kinds of data to use for their algorithms.

While all of that is awesome for the searchers, websites, and the online marketing firms, other changes that Google is planning will make web marketing more difficult to accomplish. One thing is that Google is entering new fields. One example is with their purchase of ITA software in 2010, they’ve been able to compete with other airlines by promoting their own travel offers above other search results. Organic SEO and paid advertising will no longer be enough to compete with a powerhouse like Google.

Secondly, Google is limiting the availability of certain data to webmasters and online marketing firms. This includes how and where visitors found websites, along with other data necessary to analyze the effectiveness of a website in attracting viewers. This restriction is due to Google viewing this type of data as an advantage that they want to keep away from any potential competitors. This has already begun to come into effect, with a small percentage of visits not being reported to the webmasters from Google. And it looks like this percentage will only become larger in the new year.

When discussing your upcoming marketing strategy, take into account that Google is not planning on making web marketing any easier. The rules of the game have changed, and it’s up to the webmasters and online marketing firms to keep up with them, or get lost in the dust or, worst yet, not appear on the first page of search results.