It looks as though search is about to enter a new era as it begins to mix into social media. Search engines have already attempted to place some kind of ranking on social updates and we already know that search engines take things like follower quality into account in how they rank tweets.

Now there is a lot of talk of Facebook "likes" and Twitter retweets taking the place of links. Not that they’re dying out – there's plenty of room for link sharing on either of these services, but in some ways these kinds of sharing are replacing links in many cases.

With Facebook's Open Graph and social plugins devouring the web, suddenly liking is taking the place of linking in some provisional scenarios.

While I don’t think anyone specifically saw the Open Graph stuff coming too long before it was announced, it's still reflective of what we've known for some time. The way people are obtaining information online is diversifying. Google's real competition isn't coming from other search engines. It's coming from different avenues of information access.

The biggest threat to Google the search engine (as opposed to the company, which offers a lot more) is people not having to rely on the traditional search engine. While I don't think Google has anything to truly worry about in terms of losing users, it has to worry more about users just not using it as often. Instead they're getting their information from apps, from friends via social networks and even when they're not necessarily at Facebook but on a site or app, via things like social plug-ins.

Here are 5 reasons Google and Search might not dominate the next decade:

    1. The search process is inefficient
    2. Mobile GPS Eliminates the need for location-based search
    3. Social Matching Could Create Valuable Connections
    4. Content Recommendations to Replace Search
    5. Suggestions Will Be the Core of Our Shopping Experience

On a not so negative note, Facebook likes may not translate to better Google rankings, but so what? It's not about choosing between likes and links. Both are ideal.

The point of all of this is it's not just about getting links anymore. Links will always be of use, but social interactions may equal them in importance, and in some cases may be of greater use to your visibility, and ultimately getting people to your site, your content, your store, or your shopping cart.