Google (News - Alert) is likely to replace Yahoo in top place for display advertising by the close of 2012, according to a new study. Greenlight made the prediction in a recent study, and also projects there will be a lot of “social link building” during 2012.

The predictions comes shortly after Google started offering its DoubleClick Search V3 platform and is in the process of investing in the product. The new platform “combines Yahoo and MSN into an AdWords type interface,” according to a Greenlight company press release carried on TMCnet.

By the close of this year, 90 percent of search budgets by advertisers will be in AdWords, and the “trend is set for display,” Hannah Kimuyu, Paid (News - Alert) Media director at Greenlight, added in the company statement.

In addition, Adam Bunn, SEO director at Greenlight, said that the use of social media is a great way to improve “brand perception online.” Social media can also impact engine optimization (SEO) campaigns, “by increasing the speed of accrual and the volume of natural links pointing to a site,” the company adds in the statement. Another prediction from Greenlight is that social media sites will become more multi-faceted during 2012.

In other recent news about Greenlight, e-commerce Web sites should clean up their content before Google’s “Panda” goes global, according to Greenlight. Google is taking special efforts to eliminate duplicate content on Web sites. The search engine giant is also looking at an algorithm change to reduce low quality content.

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