Ghost of personalized search and the Future of SEO – Part II
Posted by admin in Blog | 9 comments
Lately, it has been the hot topic in “SEO Circles” and more so … after the launch of Google’s SearchWiki. Some are feeling intimidated; others have shrugged it off. As far as I m concerned, that’s quite an exciting development. Reason? Mainly, because after a long monotonous pause, an opportunity has cropped up for SEO professionals to flex their muscles and to try something new. The pebble of “personalized search result” has managed to disturb … an otherwise unruffled surface of “SEO waters”. The game is on and the first place contenders are on their toes again.
SearchWiki is a relatively new tool and some of you might not be too familiar with it. For those who have no idea about this latest “Googly” thrown by Google, the concept behind SearchWiki is to enable users to see search results based on their previous browsing (or search) history. By the looks of it that means everybody will see different results for the same key phrases … so far so good but some SEO persons are going berserk over it, and the predictions of the likely death of conventional SEO are coming out yet again. In my previous post, I have discussed the non-existence of any conventional SEO in the first place, SEO is the name of change and those declaring “personalized search” as something extra-ordinarily revolutionary are just trying to catch the attention of hoi polloi.
Am I trying to make you oblivious to the change “personalized search” might bring in the future? Certainly not … all I m trying to establish is that world has not come to an end with introduction of SearchWiki or any other personalized search tool. From this time forth, search engine optimization has become a bit more complicated but at the same time far more rewarding. Previously, we had more traffic with low conversion rates, now we’ll get probably a reduced amount of traffic but with much more potential of conversion.
And in the end something to ponder upon, here are some excerpts from Googleblog’s post about SearchWiki …
“Today we’re launching SearchWiki, a way for you to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don’t feel belong.”
And now something that immediately caught my attention (as well as many other SEO experts’ attention).
“The changes you make only affect your own searches. But SearchWiki also is a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link.”
Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html
So now we can add results and also notes … and we can see how the community has collectively edited the search results. Read again, how the community has collectively edited the search results. Makes me wonder, maybe Google would also be interested in knowing how the community has collectively edited the search results? Interesting, eh?
What do you think of these options? Feel free (in fact feel forced) to share with us … I’ll definitely write more about it, but first your opinions, please.
Let the debate begin!
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Personalized search is still in its rudimentary stage atleast from the user perspective. I don’t think that it will have any effect on SEO. as far as future is concerned, if personalized search affects SEO then SEO too will change as change is inherent part of SEO
Interesting read, keep up the good work:-)
I think this is a welcomed change in the SEO world, Google are always developing new technologies, and this is a fact, so just go with it… So with introduction of Google Wiki I’d say SEO is even more important.
If your site is of high quality and is found, then there is nothing to worry about!
If you just take SEO into account then it is simply OPTIMIZING a site to be found in search engines. It’s up to the site owner to make sure the content is relevant to the users, it will help to remove many sales copy and spammy websites that are optimised for a specific term from many users results.
Also a major factor is how many people actually log into their Google account when running searches, I for one don’t as an SEO specialist I need “fair” results, at least as fair as they can come, so logging into Google and potentially have them tracked for all I search for isn’t a good idea.
If my searches start to become customised to how and what I search for (which I think is the way Google will go with this) then it’s not really generic to the “average user”.
wow, that’s some really useful information and nice hint at the end of article
Interesting article, this means that Google will show me all kinds of weird stuff (based on my search queries, I have a very curious mind) I can almost hear all these “wanna be” SEO companies crying out loud
Proffesional SEM’s and internet marketers will learn to adapt to the changing playground, SEO is simply just one aspect of a SEM campaign.
Who knows in 12 months times, SEO could be dead and SWO SearchWikiOptimisation would be the new black. ( I have since copyrighted this the phrase Search Wiki Optimisation, so don’t try and use it )
I can only see benefits for professional SEM’s and Customers alike from this change.
The SEO industry is currently over saturated with cowboys charging peanuts for SEO, the change will force these cowboys out of the SEM business, which means more professionals are left to give quality guidance and service to the customers.
Bring on SWO I say. Its time for change.
@amokk
lolz @ your copyrights … i fully respect them, don’t worry
But SearchWiki is not fool proof by any means, what makes you think that this change will force the “cowboys” out of the SEO business?
@natasha & Eliza
Thanks for your liking
@makeseriouscash
The problem is that most Google users would not even notice the change, they won’t care if the results are generic or based on their browsing history, they’ll go for anything that Google throws at them as search results.
@Zepia
Yes, but only if you choose to see that group of results.
I enjoyed reading this article and as someone who tries to stay in the loop in regards to SEO/SEM, I think SearchWiki will become something of a whirlwind once people realize its there. It’ll also be yet another venue to pursue money. Well done, I’ll definitely check back to see what else is going on in this blog. Thanks for referring me to the blog.
JAM
I agree to star power domain. Even I think it will turn to destructive tool as more and more people will come in touch with it.