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Friday, May 11th, 2012
Microsoft’s search offering, Bing, has undergone another revamp. And with a huge focus on social, Bing may have found a way to begin to oust Google from search dominance.
After joining a ‘search alliance’ with Yahoo!, the “New Bing” will try to usurp Google by offering things it currently can’t.
Of course, Bing will still return normal organic search results and paid ads, just like it used to.
But now its social annotations, scraped from public information across a variety of social networks, are being lumped into a special sidebar, giving you the chance to interact with social friends.
The sidebar will pull information from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare and even Google+.
Google has already fallen out with Twitter, and, to a lesser extent, with Facebook. It can’t return Twitter profiles in its search results, because the microblogging site has blocked their spiders.
Not so with Bing.
Whereas Google has faced accusations of throttling social results – leading Facebook and Twitter to publicly demand “Don’t be Evil” (a cheeky nod to Google’s original ethos) whilst falling out with the search giant – Bing isn’t discriminating.
Google isn’t going to be able to pull info from Twitter or public posts from Facebook until relations are mended. In the meantime, Bing has a big open deal which could allow it to steal a march on Google.
The ramifications of this social focus, on both search engine optimisation and pay per click campaigns, could be huge. It would see an integrated Internet marketing approach, where search marketing and advertising is combined with social media.
Friend recommendations could become key selling tools, for instance. Group discounts for social groups with similar interests could be offered. It’s still early days, but the potential to create more joined-up marketing campaigns certainly exists.
Bing has been quick to point out that in a blindfolded taste test – much like those undertaken during the 1980s cola wars between Coke and Pepsi – search users preferred Bing’s search results to Google’s.
“We regularly test unbranded results, removing any trace of Google and Bing branding,” they said. “When we did this study in January of last year, 34% preferred Bing, whilst 38% preferred Google.
“The same unbranded study now shows that Bing search results have a much wider lead over Google’s. When shown unbranded search results, 43% prefer Bing, whilst only 28% prefer Google results.”
Of course, internal market research is hard to qualify. And Bing still needs to convince people to leave the relative comfort zone of Google and try something new.
If that works, though, then Google could face a real fight to maintain its position.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: Bing, facebook, Google, LinkedIn, online marketing, optimisation, PPC, results, search, SEO, social, twitter, yahoo
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
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Thursday, May 10th, 2012
The Google Penguin update, launched last month, punishes sites participating in dodgy paid link schemes by removing them from the search results.
Now, post-Penguin, the Internet marketing industry is debating whether the algorithm change has become a charter for negative SEO.
Negative SEO is essentially search sabotage: giving competitors a Google Minus, if you will.
The idea is to use underhand, blackhat SEO techniques on a competitor’s website – as though the competitor had done it themselves. Google sees dodgy SEO activity on the competitor site, and downranks it as a result. Your site then sails up the rankings as your sabotaged competitors disappear.
It’s a horrible strategy.
Penguin’s introduction was supposed to bolster honest, white hat SEO: not destroy it.
But some commentators claim that by arbitrarily downranking sites with unnatural link profiles, Penguin has made negative SEO strategies a very stark reality.
One of the main problems is that most small websites can’t actually control their own inbound links. Bigger companies can afford lawyers to run round getting dodgy sites to remove links. Smaller sites cannot.
If you run a small e-commerce site, which currently ranks on the first page for your core products, will your business survive on Google’s first page if a nefarious competitor aims 50,000 bad links in your direction?
Some experts say it would be too hard to make negative SEO foolproof, and it would essentially be impossible to downrank well-established sites because of Google’s other ranking factors.
Negative SEO has always been in existence and it’s not something Google would want to promote.
Yes, Penguin has made backlinks a dangerous factor for all sites, but in reality, it shouldn’t really increase the prevalence of negative SEO campaigns.
That’s partly because backlinks are just one metric Google uses to analyse the quality of a website. The basic idea is the more backlinks a site has, the more trustworthy it must be, the more useful its content must be, and the more valuable it is to a searcher.
Sites like the BBC, Daily Mail or Wikipedia have massively strong link profiles, and they rank very well for a huge number of search terms as a result. Their SEO work, compared to smaller, less-known sites, is pretty much an effortless process.
Smaller sites are judged on the same metrics as massive global brands, and that includes backlinks.
Some experts have cited examples of negative SEO campaigns actually working on smaller sites – especially as SMEs don’t have the international recognition or consumer loyalty of bigger brands.
The advice for vigilant SEOs is to stay vigilant. You should be checking sites for evidence of negative SEO campaigns anyway – and there are some steps you can perform to help protect you against this kind of underhand campaign.
If you notice a spike in unnatural-looking backlinks, work quickly to try to get them removed. Contact sites who have given you positive links and establish a line of communication. If those links are suddenly removed by a fraud, you have more chance of getting the link back.
Other negative SEO tactics to look out for include crawlers sent to your site to scrape it and slow down load times – this can cause visitors to bounce very quickly, so you should always be checking the IPs visiting your site, and blocking potential crawlers.
Stealing content from competitor websites before Google has indexed it is another means of sabotage. If Google sees your content on a competitor site first, it will discount yours as duplicate or plagiarism (even though you wrote the piece). Using rel=canonical tags can help prevent this.
Other tactics can be harder to deal with: this includes spamming review sites with bad reviews, or even with good reviews, as a huge swathe of positive reviews (especially from the same IP address) would immediately appear dodgy to Google.
The first iteration of Penguin was always going to have a few creases to be ironed out.
It’s unlikely Penguin can be refreshed to recognise whether a site owner or webmaster has paid for backlinks, or whether a competitor has attempted to sabotage them.
But it’s also highly unlikely that Google will allow negative SEO success stories to become the norm.
Something’s got to give.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Tags: algorithm, backlinks, canonical, Google, internet marketing, link profile, negative seo, online marketing, penguin, spam, tags, unnatural, update, webspam, white hat
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
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Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
Google’s Penguin update has sent the SEO industry into something of an ironic flap.
Almost a fortnight after Penguin went live, webmasters are still moaning and complaining that Google got it wrong.
And in some cases, the detractors have a point.
Penguin was designed to destroy the dark arts of SEO. Black hat tactics – such as keyword stuffing, or paying for spammy inbound links – have been utilised by cheeky webmasters attempting to manipulate the rankings. And Google’s had enough.
Penguin aimed to torpedo sites which used keyword stuffing to trick spiders into thinking their content was relevant, whilst also blacklisting sites which had paid for dodgy incoming links in an attempt to falsify credibility.
But Penguin clearly hasn’t worked exactly as Google planned.
Search industry forums are reporting examples of apparently ‘white hat’, honest websites being downranked, with examples of horrific, spammy ‘black hat’ sites suddenly displaying on the front page of Google for completely unrelated search terms (see below).
The thing is, though, is that Penguin hasn’t altered much in reality. It’s certainly not a game changer.
Google has always had good practice guidelines. But it hasn’t always had a way to police whether sites are adhering to those guidelines.
Penguin, therefore, is essentially a Google search copper, plodding the everlasting beat that is the results pages, looking for traces of the notorious Internet crimelords Webspam and Spammy Links, and attempting to bring the perpetrators of online offences to justice.
Now, the problem. It’s bit like a search version of RoboCop – Penguin appears to have been appointed judge, jury and executioner by Google.
And that, it seems, is where the problem lies. Penguin is programmed – it has been coded to look for telltale signs of black hat SEO. It’s not a human, and it’s not capable of rational thought (unless Google’s keeping something from us).
As such, Penguin was always going to be prone to mistakes – especially after first launching. That in itself should account for the ‘funny behaviour’ reported by webmasters immediately after Penguin went live. Some went as far as to claim Penguin “broke Google” – others petitioned for the update to be reversed.
Google realises that placing arbitrary decision-making into the hands of a dumb robot isn’t going to reap foolproof results and is prepared to reinstate accidentally downranked websites.
Webmasters who feel unfairly punished by Google can flag up their complaint. Those meeting Google’s good practice guidelines should be reinstated as a result. Conversely, you can also report instances where spammy, rotten sites are returning high in the results when they really shouldn’t be.
This level of teething problems and fall-0ut clearly wasn’t part of Google’s intention with the Penguin update.
Google wanted Penguin to go some way towards levelling the playing field for search engine optimisation. Some feel it’s an attempt to push people towards paid ad-based Internet marketing.
It’s clear Google still has some work to do, either way.
And until then, those genuine sites which have lost rankings – and business as a result – are going to have to weather the storm.
- Have the Rules for White Hat SEO Changed After Penguin?
A Sideways View On The News, by Ali Harris, content manager for ClickThrough Marketing
Penguin wasn’t a game-changer – it was simply a means to enforce the ‘rules’ already laid out by Google.
Those who had got away with breaking, or just bending, the rules for some time have now been penalised. That may’ve meant some previously top-ranking sites suddenly plummeting.
Anyone adhering to Google’s best practice guidelines, on the whole, will have avoided a hammering from Penguin.
The cases where legitimate sites got downranked are few and far between, and Google has set up the right channels to rectify this. If Google refuses to reinstate a site, chances are, there’s some spam, links or some other ‘black hat’ problems somewhere.
That said, respondents on a handful of search forums have provided examples of spammy, rubbish websites which are now appearing on page one of Google.
One great example is to search “Paypal France”. The first page of results for this search returns no fewer than three websites selling viagra.
Not only are these sites totally unrelated to the search term “Paypal France” – they’re also stuffed with keywords.
In terms of content, it’s nasty. Really nasty.
In fact, these search returns are exactly what Google engineer Matt Cutts said Penguin would whitewash.
Yet, it hasn’t.
Even the page description, displayed directly under the website URL, shows how badly stuffed some of these pages are.
One reads: “During relative of pele’s observing sugar in brazil there was no rheumatoid film viagra paypal france.”
It’d be hard for anyone to argue that this search result:
i) makes any sense
ii) is of any use to anyone, ever
iii) is not blatant, keyword-stuffed spam
iv) should be on page one of Google for any search term other than “examples of ridiculous spammy content”
It’ll be interesting to see how these anomalies iron out in the coming weeks, and whether Google refreshes Penguin so it looks a lot more closely at the factors which might separate a genuine site from a fraud.
If they do, may I suggest this level of closer inspection should henceforth be known as ‘observing sugar in Brazil’?
- Why call the Google algorithm update Penguin?
The last big algorithm change from Google was called Panda. This one was Penguin.
Speculation is rife that Google is following a pattern with its search engine updates.
The obvious bits are: animals (cute ones at that), which begin with a ‘p’, and are black and white.
Guesses for next update name include Panther, and Pigeon (derived from vowel use: pAnda, pEnguin, pIgeon etc…).
On the black and white theme, some have posited that Google is separating ‘white hat’ tactics from ‘black hat’ tactics via the use of bestial metaphor.
I have my own theory behind the name, which takes us back to the ironic flapping of the SEO industry.
Take Google’s ‘average user’ – someone with little knowledge of anything. Google plays to the lowest common denominator.
If you don’t know anything about quantum theory, and you Google it, you’d want something reputable, trustworthy and reliable to return on the front page of the results. The same goes for any search term.
With webspam sites, you might get a top search result which says “Quantum Theory” on the page name, and includes the phrase in the description too. But on closer inspection, a bunch of other, unrelated words are in the description. This is known as keyword stuffing.
Click the link, and you won’t find a repository of sparkling information about relativity, worm holes, or physics. No. You’ll probably get a bunch of bad links, nonsense sentences, and the odd advert for a miracle diet instead.
In search terms, that result is useless.
Now imagine you’re looking for a bird. You’d expect a bird to fly, right?
Only, Penguins can’t fly.
So perhaps, Penguin was designed to root out sites which seem genuine, which look like they are fit for purpose, but, on closer inspection, are actually technically useless. Like a Penguin’s wings.
Or maybe I’ve overcomplicated it.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: Black hat, Google, internet marketing, Keyword stuffing, links, online marketing, Paid Ads, penguin, PPC, Search Engine Marketing, SEO, white hat
Posted in Search Engine News
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Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
Internet marketing companies and search engine optimisation experts are poring over their websites today, after Google released its latest algorithm changes, designed to weed out “webspam” sites which manipulate search rankings.
Google’s latest tweak will punish sites using dirty tactics to trick search spiders – such as keyword stuffing
Most reputable SEO companies use “white hat” techniques for search engine optimisation and Internet marketing. But various nefarious webmasters ride roughshod over their good work: creating unnatural copy which reads like a random selection of words, or stuffing completely unrelated keyword links into articles.
“Good” SEO involves a mix of techniques – including ensuring onsite copy contains the right keywords in the right volume, writing the right title tags and descriptions, and a mix of regular, quality content updates; meaningful blog posts and newsworthy press releases.
Inbound links are another metric Google uses for PageRank – based on the premise that users will happily share links to sites which host trustworthy, valuable and informative content. Sites full of spammy rubbish clearly wouldn’t be linked as they are useless.
Linkbuilding schemes are a relatively complex area, but a good strategy will ensure the right websites for your industry are hosting links to your content. “Bad” linkbuilding schemes include buying backlinks from random sites, or participating in link schemes where vast swathes of sites backlink to each other in a bid to dupe Google’s algorithm.
It seems Google is actually manually reviewing sites which its algorithm has flagged as having “unnatural links”. Around one-million messages have been sent to webmasters who Google suspects have dabbled in black hat link schemes. The fact Google has done this send-out manually shows how important it is to get this right: webmasters who’ve built links with great content may still be flagged by the robotic algorithm – human review checks whether the spiders were right.
The latest update will see these “bad” SEO practices penalised – so sites who use honest, white hat techniques don’t get pushed down the rankings by cheats.
“The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines,” said Google engineer Matt Cutts in a blog post. “We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content… our advice to webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
Tags: algorithm, backlinks, Black hat, google rank lost, internet marketing, link schemes, links, online marketing, Panda, ranking changes, SEO, spam, webspam, white hat
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation
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Friday, April 20th, 2012
Pay per click marketing strategies have been given a boost by a new Google tool which claims to show whether a paid ad has been viewed or not.
PPC, or paid search, involves a strategic approach to keywords and display. Unlike organic online marketing, known as search engine optimisation or SEO, which can take months to build, PPC provides a far quicker click journey directly to a sale.
Users searching for a specific products can be given a choice of paid ads – so if they’re searching because they know they want to buy, marketers give customers a direct avenue to the purchase the products they want.
It’s therefore important to ensure potential customers get the right information about right products when they click your PPC ads. Getting the correct landing page could mean the difference between a sale or a bounce.
Whilst strategies understandably focus on these important facets of paid-for internet marketing: like click rate, bounce rate, and conversions, it’s not always been possible to report on the actual visibility of an advert.
Now, Google has said a new tool will give marketers even more information about their PPC marketing campaigns.
The Active View addition is designed to show marketers when an ad has been viewed – meaning advertisers could only pay for adverts that users see. Of course, traditional marketing has always had a more “fish in barrel” approach: pay for advertising (on TV, in newspapers, on radio), and hope that interested customers see or hear your ad.
Online marketing provides a greater opportunity to measure ad engagement. The effectiveness of a full-page ad in a national newspaper could be measured by a spike in inquiries or sales following publication, but this is hardly hard and fast analysis.
If Google is able to program Active View to give a real statistical analysis of ad views – rather than an educated guess – it could become an invaluable way to cut spend and increase conversions at the same time.
Google’s quantification will use the Interactive Advertising Bureau standard: a “seen ad” will be seen on-screen for more than a second.
Even without the ability to track ad views, paid search marketing remains an incredibly effective form of internet marketing: one which can create incredible returns with the right strategic approach.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a provider of SEO Services & Pay Per Click strategies.
Tags: internet marketing, online marketing, Pay Per Click (PPC), PPC, search advertising, SEO
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
Facebook marketing is getting more expensive – even though less users are clicking on ads on the giant social network, according to a new report.
Research from one Facebook-focussed agency and verified by Cambridge University claims advertisers are forking out 15% more per click now than at the same time last year.
The study looked at Facebook advertising in 190 countries, involving 235 brands.
It found that costs per click had risen by around 23% in the top five countries, US, UK, Canada, France and Germany in the first three months of 2012, whilst the average cost of acquiring a Facebook fan has risen by 77% in the UK.
The rise in ad costs comes against an actual decrease in clickthrough rates on Facebook ads – around six per cent less Facebook users are clicking on paid ads now than at the start of 2011.
Facebook is launching a much-anticipated stock market flotation, with a valuation of around $100bn. Having access to 800m+ global users is a huge bargaining tool for Facebook – but the key is whether the social network can make money out of its popularity. Around 85% of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising.
The business-end of the rise of social networks will mean an increased focus on paid-for advertising, making conversions a more important facet of social media marketing.
The study also shows that the UK is now the second most profitable social network advertising market, overtaking Canada and now just behind the US.
One of the biggest trend changes on Facebook is the number of clicks on news items – the launch of the social reader app has seen clicks rise 196% in quarter-on-quarter comparisons.
In terms of click costs, the research also revealed that the financial services industry is paying out more than anyone else for Facebook ads – around three and a half times more than the average food or drink marketer pays.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: clickthrough, cost per click, facebook, Facebook Ads, internet marketing, online marketing, paid search, social media advertising
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
Around £4.48bn was spent on online advertising in the UK in 2011: representing the biggest year-on-year rise in half a decade.
Spend grew by 14.4% over the last 12 months – with paid search, or PPC services, accounting for around 58% of the total.
PPC advertising rose 17.5% year-on-year, whilst spending on video-based advertising doubled, to £109m.
Video now represents 10% of all display ads – with Yahoo! and YouTube focussing on watchable ad content.
Display advertising itself has evolved massively in recent years – it became a £1bn industry in the UK for the first time in 2011.
Until relatively recently, most display ads took the form of banners and remarketed ads, placed on web pages either through Google’s ad distribution network, or directly hosted on relevant sites.
The rise of social media has caused a massive upthrust in spend, however – with the outlay on social display advertising rising 75% to £240m in the UK in 2011.
New figures from Pricewaterhouse Coopers, in the Internet Advertising Bureau’s expenditure report, show display ads made up 24% of all online advertising spending in 2011, up from 23% in 2010. The stats show the amount spent on UK display ads hit £1.13bn by the end of 2011 – the first time more than £1bn has been spent in a year.
The main social players – Twitter, Facebook and YouTube – all host display ads, with various formats giving Internet marketers a suite of advertising options.
The IAB said new display options – such as billboard ads – offered greater visibility for potential customers. Evolving advertising technology, with new ways to attract customers, should ensure this remains a growth area into 2013.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: advertising, Display Ads, Google Display Network, internet advertising, online marketing, paid search
Posted in Pay Per Click Marketing
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Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
As social media marketing budgets continue to grow, it’s vitally important to have a way to assess how your efforts are going.
Heidi Cohen, writing for ClickZ, has produced a ‘Social Media Marketing Checkup’ to help businesses get a decisive mid-year insight into their marketing efforts.
Here is a summary of the five points provided:
- How do your current social media marketing efforts look? – Check all marketing platforms across the various digital channels, including social sharing. Look back at targets and use information, such as social media-supported sales figures, to determine the success.
- Take a look around – Be aware of your environment. Look at the wider ongoing and upcoming trends, be it in politics, the economy or technology – it can be useful in helping you decide whether your approach needs to be altered. Monitor the talk about your business, products and keywords.
- What are your rivals doing in social media marketing? – Gather valuable information from brand monitoring. This can then be used to help define what you can do to better the social media experience your business offers.
- Be aware of the ever-changing social media ecosystem – Keep close tabs on how any changes could affect your marketing strategies. Always look into the new and emerging networks – remember they could be ‘the next big thing’.
- What do you need to change? – Decide what can be modified or improved upon within your social media marketing strategy.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Tags: Heidi Cohen, marketing strategies, online marketing, Social Media
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Friday, July 15th, 2011
Despite the significant emphasis placed on social media, a recent poll has shown almost half of small-business owners don’t utilise social media marketing.
As reported in the Wall Street Journal, only four per cent of people surveyed specified that social media was an indispensable tool; whilst 50 per cent instead valued the power of word-of-mouth more.
The survey was carried out by the US insurer Hiscox Insurance Company; 304 business owners and managers were interviewed in May this year.
Those business owners that do use social media did so to improve brand awareness and ultimately generate more sales.
28 per cent said they had a company Facebook page; LinkedIn was also a popular choice with 18 per cent of respondents having a page or group on the site.
Twitter, surprisingly, was a less popular choice amongst small businesses, with just two per cent of companies operating a Twitter feed.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
Tags: facebook, LinkedIn, online marketing, Social Media, twitter
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Monday, July 4th, 2011
For far too many years, too many people have believed that Search Engine Optimisation was the be all and end all of Internet Marketing. Millions of pounds have been spent (wasted?) on endeavouring to get to the top of the search engines; often without fully understanding, “WHY?”
However, Google has taken steps recently that should make many realise that even Google has spied the fact that no longer is search going to be the predominant method for finding your business.
RECOMMENDATION is.
WORD OF MOUSE.
And the sooner businesses see what Google has, understand what Google is doing, and adjust where they spend their marketing pounds, the better for the bottom line.
Even in-house it has been a struggle to get SEO and PPC people to understand the importance of social media, and the changes that was bringing to SEO. That importance and those changes began a few years ago, are becoming prevalent now, and stretche far into the future. Just like language changed the stone age world, so we are seeing similar changes now, online.
For many, this is disruptive and has been hard to grasp, mainly because the mantra of “SEO is great” has been around for so long that many in the SEO world could not cope with “SEO is DEAD”. People have become locked into the algorithms so deeply they have missed what is going on in the “outside world”
The introduction of more bandwidth into the online world has meant we have gone from simply broadcasting to COMMUNICATING. And no-one communicates more than a pro-active consumer. Many businesses have attempted to ignore this fact: by locking down access to social sites for their employees; by making comments unavailable on press releases, stories, blog posts etc; by not adding Chat buttons to the site to talk to passing trade; by pooh-poohing sites such as Facebook for as long as they dared until the noise could no longer be ignored. After all, in ye olde world, businesses had control over the messages that were carefully crafted to be released. That world has long gone.
All of this communication has come, not because Google existed (there were search engines and SEO practioners for more than 10 years before Google arrived on the scene), but because the way we all use the Internet is changing. And Google have realised this, and are taking steps to extend their dominance beyond a dying industry – search – to a growing one – communication.
(Image Source: Mashable.com)
Google are making a huge number of changes, and these have already begun. Google+ is one, but Google is endeavouring, and will undoubtedly succeed, to make the whole of Google’s multiplex of products work together seamlessly, or (better than they have) alone, should that be the choice of the consumer.
Google Calendar has already changed and Gmail has new profiles that are on Preview at the moment, but are shortly to be rolled out. (Click on Settings, Themes, Preview and Preview (Dense) for a ….preview!).
There are changes coming to Youtube as Google begins to hire people as citizen journalists in US cities to possibly threaten the big bad media. And search-based ads have been under threat by Facebook’s huge amount of personal data offering advertisers granular targeting, so Google is working on that too – not just through Google+, but also with the +1 button for personalised search within their own engine.
Google appears to be about to bid for Hulu as well, which will take Google into the world of Hollywood. And increase users’ time online. Which is where the purpose of Google’s trip into the world of fibre networks to the home becomes a serious threat to telcos. Particularly if Google pursues open access models which could turn the world of companies such as BT on its head, forcing them to find alternative revenue streams which Google has not already mopped up.
Recommendation engines are another big thing that has been coming at us, slowly but surely, and Google isn’t slow on getting involved in this either. One example is Hotpot is a beta recommendation engine for places you and your friends recommend, and Google+ Mobile has launched with Places in-built, which will give them a running start on gathering info, particularly as Maps is an integral part of the Google+ toolbar.
The +1 button on its own should have made SEO people conscious that the days of knowing what will show in a searcher’s SERPS are limited, of not already gone. The addition of the huge amount of slicing and dicing possible with news, discussions, realtime, shopping etc on the left hand side of the SERPS was also an indication that to optimise a web page for that level of granularity was now getting difficult, if not impossible. No longer is it an option to sit down and create profiles for users based on whether they were likely to be conducting research, or shopping.
Those days of that simplicity of search are long gone. And hence so is SEO as most agencies and SEO experts think of it. Whilst there has long been debates about where the blurry lines of SEO activity begin and end – does it include PPC, or posting to fora, or article marketing, for instance – now that debate is defunct. SEO is dead. You cannot optimise for the search engines any more and justify it. You must optimise for the consumers. After all, they are the ones who buy your products, who seek the information you offer, and who are increasingly unlikely to use a search engine to do so.
Tags: +1, algorithms, article marketing, business, communication, discussions, fora, FTTH, Google, online marketing, places, realtime, recommendation, recommendation engine, SEO, seo is dead, serps, shopping, Social Media, word of mouse
Posted in Blog, Google, SEO
