Classic Search Engine Optimization May Face Extinction
November 11, 2009 | Written by Yan Shikhvarger
Google’s announcements over past several months have gotten me to think very differently of where SEO could be headed. I am thinking of 3 announcements in particular
1. The ‘Search Wiki’ results page where users can rearrange the results they are getting – true personalized results
2. Integration with Twitter search which will deliver more real-time Twitter content into the search results page
3. ‘Social Search’ which puts content from your personal network into the search results page
This is all disrupting one of the primary tenants of SEO: the relatively stable search results page that is arranged by an algorithm that ranks results on their relevancy to the search query.
However, these new products are really shifting the control of the search results page to the user, their personal preferences, live results, and content from their social networks. For SEO purposes, we may not even know what the search results page looks like from user to user. These are additional levels of complexity that simply cannot be overcome by “content optimization” and “link building.”
Even though adoption of these features still needs to increase, SEO specialists will need to expand their worldview and join the other types of marketers that are all converging on Social Media whether they are advertisers, PR, SEO, direct response, and other types of specialists.
Comments (1)
December 14th, 2009 at 12:11 am Posted by Michelle Ma
Search Wiki is for the obsessive compulsive. People should be more compulsive with the words they choose to use. The searches they place.
The idea of integration with twitter search is a ridiculous proposition. Twitter is a birdcage, to think that tweets are the world is insane. Many people try to alienate themselves with the chirps but they might as well be sifting through the garbage and eating chips.
In response to the idea of ‘Social Search’ there is a risk of a cluttering of content or even a monopolization of ‘content’ and ‘information.’ As with academic citations, people build on each others like ants.
Chomsky has too many citations to be believed while a better socio-linguist could have zero and be furthermore unknown.
Post Your Comment
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)