Gasta News: Google Personalized search, Personified

Interview with Googles Matt Cutts

Cutts said, "I'm not sure I would say ranking is dead but it's not as important as it used to be. The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It's great if you're ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn't help you very much."

"The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don't worry about 'can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase.'"


Universal Search In 2009

"Universal is really useful and I think it will continue to expand and what that means in 2009 you can't just think of yourself as an SEO," said Cutts.

"SEOs are starting to embrace the fact that they are marketers. It's a broader spectrum. You have to think about how you build buzz, how do you get loyal customers, how do you optimize your ROI. All those different things and that can include how do I make good videos, do I have a book, things like that."

Cutts says that people will continue to pay attention to video and images in 2009 but noted a down side. "Of course anywhere there is money there will be spam." Google has been focusing on its different properties to manage the spam issue.

Metadata

Google has gotten better on Flash and submitting a video to video sitemaps is really helpful in getting onto Google Video Search. "We want to be able to present video from all kinds of places," said Cutts.

Video File Format

"Whatever file format you want to use is totally fine."

Mobile

Cutts says that just because search engines are getting better at Flash does not mean mobile is. On mobile devices you can't just think about search engines. You have to think about the user experience.

Competing with Black Hat SEO

"Black Hat SEO is getting a little more malicious. In a world where Black Hat is moving towards really illegal things as an SEO you have to decide your risk tolerance and do I really want to try to compete with people who are doing illegal stuff or do I want to make a long term site that's gonna stand the test of time."

Subdomains

There is no real advantage to using Subdomains. If you have a lot of Subdomains that can be a lot of work. You don't want to overdo it. Really it's what ever is easiest for you.

Gasta Search Statistics

Search engine data is the most relevant on the net

The net reveals the ties that bind


Regular columnist Bill Thompson wonders what it will take to get used to living in a networked society.
One of the throwaway remarks I sometimes make at conferences is that "Google knows you're pregnant before you do".
I can say this because the things you search for will change as your life changes, and search engine providers may well be able to spot the significance of these changes because they aggregate data from millions of people.
Now Google's philanthropic arm, google.org, has shown just what it can do with the data it gathers from us all by offering to predict where 'flu outbreaks will take place in the USA.
It has found that "certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity", in that they correlate well with reports from the official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And it claims that "across each of the nine surveillance regions of the United States, we were able to accurately estimate current flu levels one to two weeks faster than published CDC reports", a result that could save people's lives by alerting them to have 'flu vaccinations earlier than they might otherwise have done.
This is a really interesting piece of work and clearly demonstrates the power of data mining. Its potential usefulness is not limited to health matters.
Pick and mix
As John Naughton pointed out in The Observer, "everyone I know in business has known for months that the UK is in recession, but it's only lately that the authorities have been in a position to confirm that - because the official data always lag the current reality."
Perhaps the answer lies buried somewhere in the queries being made online, with company directors or politicians searching for terms that imply a coming recession, like details of redundancy pay or bankruptcy protection.
It isn't only Google who can do this of course. Its database of queries is vast and fast-growing, but it is only one among many databases that underpin the modern world.
The banking system is really only a collection of collected databases recording who has which assets, while neither government nor business could operate without complex data stores.
Soon the national ID register will store details of everyone in the UK, while the forthcoming Communications Data Bill is likely to include proposals to create a vast system that will record details of every e-mail sent, every website surfed and every file downloaded.
As we have seen with flu trends, sometimes the "interesting" knowledge that can be extracted is well-concealed until comparisons can be made with other sources, as it was the correlation between some search terms and the real-world data that mattered.
Of course Google has not revealed which search terms it analysed because doing so would undermine the model's effectiveness.
Unfortunately it is being equally reticent about how it has ensured that the data its uses is properly anonymised so that users cannot be identified on the basis of their queries.
A letter from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Patient Privacy Rights to Google boss Eric Schmidt has not been answered, leaving those concerned with online privacy uncertain over the broader implications of the project.
Early warning
But as Cade Metz points out in an insightful article in The Register, we may all be happy to know that a 'flu outbreak is coming, but what happens when the disease involved is more life-threatening and the government asks Google for the names and IP addresses of anyone whose search terms indicate that they are infected?
It's not that I don't trust Google. I don't trust any company, government department or individual without a good reason to do so.
In the case of search engines that claim to protect my privacy I want to know just how they do it and will not accept vague reassurances.
In the case of governments that want to build vast databases, I want strong legal sanctions against their abuse and full disclosure of the technical details.
Those of us living in the west with access to technology and the network have lived through a revolution in the last decade and a half that is as radical in its impact as the industrial revolution, and it has happened a lot faster.
It is hardly surprising that we do not yet know how to operate in a networked world where amazingly detailed data is routinely stored, processed and made available.
We will need to think in new ways, learn to assess risk according to new criteria, and find ways to hold those who have power over us - whether political, social or cultural - accountable in new ways.
The US writer Curt Monash has written about this topic many times over the years, arguing that since we clearly cannot halt the move towards data capture and use we should put legal and regulatory frameworks in place as a matter of urgency.
We have made a start in Europe with data protection legislation which could be strengthened and reinforced if politicians were willing to make the effort.
But first we need an active press and an engaged population, one that asks hard questions, forces those who want to develop new databases to be accountable and open, and makes the boundaries of acceptable surveillance a matter of public debate.
And perhaps we should ask google.org to start work on "Privacy Trends", hoping to spot privacy disasters before they happen by looking at searches for "compromised data", "hacked database" and "lost USB stick".

Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.

Gasta Ready for the New search3.0 wave

At PubCon, Bruce Clay, Inc. President Bruce Clay presented at a session entitled "Top-Shelf Organic SEO" in which he discussed the approaching future of SEO as search engines evolve into more modern ranking methods. Bruce was good enough to take the time to speak with our own Michael McDonald in a one-on-one interview, which can be viewed in the video below.
Behavior Based Search

Bruce says that everybody who does a search will end up with different search results based on their prior search history. Personalization is going to be "web-wide" using third party cookies and things.

He provided a specific example of a search for "java". Some are looking for programming, some are looking for the beverage, and some are looking for travel information. Theoretically, the search engines will know that and provide results accordingly.

"We can't search for any term and look at rankings because I can get different results than you for exactly the same query. So that's going to change a lot," he says. It doesn't matter if you're logged into Google or not. Bruce believes that personalized results will be coming out within the first quarter of next year.

Intent-based Search

Google has been looking up your IP and revising results based on IP. They know where you're located and can make assumptions about the intent of your search. As you get more into intent-based search, it's going to change the way pages rank, Bruce explains. "The page that ranks for a shopping query is an entirely different architecture than the page that ranks for a research query."

Where Does this Leave the SEO Crowd?

"Ranking is dead," says Bruce, recalling his words from his presentation. Going forward, he says you're going to have to look at analytics, measure traffic, bounce rates, action, etc. SEOs will have to ask themselves questions like:

- Did I get the conversion I was after?

- Did I really deliver on the promise of SEO?

Bruce thinks that in the first six months of 2009, we're going to see a lot more implementation of behavior and intent-based search leading to a mindset of "ranking is dead, and traffic is all that matters."

Universal Search

Bruce ClayBruce says this will be the most significant factor of 2009. Google looks at soundtracks and convert them to text. They can jump into the middle of videos, scan sites to determine if you have video/images or not. There are a lot of variables in universal search, and some of these variables tell how engaging your site is.

If you don't have video and your competition does, Bruce thinks we're going to see a big shift in rankings. He thinks if the top ten sites don't have video, they may lose their ranking over night.

Bruce notes that Google has been testing some of these variables, and will really start testing them a lot more in the first quarter, once the holidays are out of the way. He mentions the criticism Google took over the Florida Update, which took place in the month of November, and believes the company wants to avoid that again. He thinks we're going to see a lot of "Google Dances" early in the year though.

The Impact on Spam

According to Bruce, this is all going to really help Google fight spammers. He says it will affect the way scrapers and spammers work, because if they are just scraping text, they wouldn't be able to rank.

He also says that all of the variables that come into play may diminish the value of linking, which will certainly not help the spammers' cause either. He says it will be a big win for Google, and big win for the searchers.

There's no question that if everything Bruce talked about comes true, the SEO world will be turned on its ear. Bruce says, "If you're not ready for it as an SEO, you're gonna lose."