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More than likely not, but there is no time like the present to look at the possible issues around this question.
There have been numerous discussions recently about the UK serps (search engine results pages) showing too many non-UK sites above established UK content. Is it a bug in the algorithm, some sort of global testing to open commercial doors for non-UK companies or is it just SNAFU?! We’ll discuss this issue next post.
On top of that, comes a re-opening of the discussions which started in 2006-7 when many in the internet marketing world were amongst the early adopters who started to use social media for personal engagement first, and then for marketing. With that use came the realisation that here was huge potential for less searches to be made on search engines because answers could be found more quickly from your peers and community.
The threat to Google et al search revenues was quite clear, as well as to SEO companies who needed to develop social media marketing strategies quickly, and the effects have become more apparent as Twitter, Facebook, community media tools and social networking have taken off.
However, the last few weeks have seen an escalation of the Google backlash, negative PR, and questionning which has been ongoing for some time because of the ubergoogle factor, but it is wider than that – it is beginning to affect the perception of the whole industry. This article seems to be the most telling of many recommending that the time has come to regulate the search landscape.
Bearing in mind the phenomenal growth of tools such as Twitter, and the fact that for many it is now far faster to find an answer to a simple problem, to conduct research, to run a survey, to go viral and so on through tools such as Twitter than through standard internet marketing and seo, it was inevitable that the search engines would start to lose favour for certain ‘real-time’ needs.
As the threats of social media have become apparent to the Googles of this world, it would seem that efforts have been made to either eliminate the threat from the likes of social bookmarking tools and blogs (as in the great October 2007 Pagerank loss for major blogs), incorporate social media tools within Google’s own apps (eg the new features in Google Reader) or to remove certain results from the algorithm entirely, whether that is manually or automatically.
The blogosphere and Twitter are both full of many, many theories, commentaries and opinions on just what is going on and what should be done about it.
If Google finds its revenues under threat – we know Google has been slow to adapt to the fast-paced development of social media – then those in the internet marketing industry need to be aware of the potential changes that Google may make to resist that ‘attack’. And hence how others will see the impact those changes have when such a massive proportion of the search engine acreage is owned by a single company, and the efforts that are then proposed to regulate that control of search habits and results.
There may be difficult times ahead for those who have put all their eggs in the Google basket.
Now really is the time to look out of the box. If the dominance that Google (once everyone’s darling and the word on everyone’s lips meaning “to search the web”) has coveted for so long is seen as a threat to world trade (particularly in times of global recession), or to the independence and freedom web surfers should enjoy, and hence efforts are made to reduce that dominance, the impact to all in the SEO, SEM and IM trade could be awesome. And not in a good way for those who have been slow to see this cloud on the horizon.
Whether you are reliant on gmail for your email, google apps and docs for all your in-house documents (a problem Twitter has recently faced when hacked) or your core business relies on serps, you should start researching and considering the potential for you.
Discuss!
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It is surprising how many businesses have not yet mastered search, not just within the search engines, but elsewhere too. The benefits of becoming “search literate” are many fold, and will allow you to save time and effort in finding the answers or solutions to a multitude of questions.
Not just who are your competitors, but who are the best suppliers for your product range, where do your customers hang out, what are the best keywords for your website, where in the blog comments is that link I saw earlier, does this document refer to us (or our competitors, industry sector etc) at all, and so on, and so on. The list is endless.
Learning how to become search literate will put you ahead of the competition in a world where being able to find information amongst the noise is paramount. Additionally, when you are struck by that fantastic business idea at 2am, before you take your late night scribbles to the bank manager for a loan you will struggle to repay, reSEARCH. Undoubtedly, someone somewhere has alread tried and failed, or succeeded. In order to win in business you need to find a niche, rather than duplicate an already successful product or service, and searching can frequently prevent you making a disastrous mistake or three!
There are some great articles out there about how to use search in multiple ways, for example:
Business Mind Hacks Blog – Before you do anything else, search
Twitip – 7 Secret Ways to use Twitter Search
LinkedIn – Power searches on LinkedIn
And if you need to find something slightly out of the ordinary, go into the deeper pages of the SERPs here! Whatever your interest, there is undoubtedly a link to a resource you had never imagined would exist.
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Statcounter reports that Bing has overtaken Yahoo! for the #2 search engine spot today.
Microsoft’s failure to purchase Yahoo! last year for $40bn may have unwittingly led to a cheaper and faster solution to Steve Ballmer’s stated desire for MS to be the number 2 search engine within 5 years.
However, tis early days for Bing, so let’s see how it pans out over the next few months when the novely wears off and the marketing flurry slows down a little.
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Another search engine has been launched this week to much fanfare – Wolfram Alpha. You will not need to suddenly rush out and optimise your websites for this search engine though in the majority of cases.
Wolfram Alpha’s main aim appears to be available “definitive answers to factual questions”. Whilst it can already provide information about population, stocks, mathematical queries and so on, W|A is unlikely ever to compete with the likes of Google over which retail outlet sells the cheapest trainers near you.
W|A should become a very useful, nay, essential, resource for Internet marketers as it provides cold, hard facts and data to back up theories and suppositions, as well as research. For instance, when trying to decide which country might be best for a campaign promoting a particular product, you are likely to be able to find the information about your target demographic within W|A. W|A appears to have accessed much of the ‘invisible web’ – those really useful facts and figures which often remain hidden inside government departments, research departments, or databases.
It has only just launched but it would seem that it this ‘fact engine’ is unlikely to go away, like Cuil did, simply because of the quantity and quality of data already stored, and being collected and collated. Keep an eye on it and remember it when you need FACTS.
Worth reading: 5 things Wolfram Alpha can do better than Google by Stan Shroeder
Worth watching: Wolfram Alpha Intro by Stephen Wolfram
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