We are in the midst of the largest algorithmic changes to Google’s relevancy since the Florida Update of 2003, and perhaps even the largest change for how marketers approach search since Google and Inktomi revolutionized the concept of citation based rankings. The interesting part of this change is that it is not focused on one concept, but rather several, that mixed together change the face of search as we move into the new year.
What makes this change so important is that the future of search, whether it be Search “2.0″ or Caffeine oriented, is based on much more than the relevancy factors of content, links, queries and relevant infrastructure. This new “Search-o-morphis” brings factors into play which include site usability, site mobility, the presence of the site socially and also more and more offpage factors which go beyond traditional linking.
- Personalized Search Changes
- Real Time Search
- Growth of Android and Personalized Mobile Search
- Social Search
- Bing Growing into legitimate option 2
These concepts individually have an effect, but combined they leave search relevancy heading in a direction that will leave SERPs looking far different than they did in 2009.
Looking at the way these changes are making search as a whole move, SEOs are going to have to focus on two new concepts in their marketing plan in 2010:
1. Social Media
2. Mobile Search
Why is social media so important? Well, since social media is such an all encompassing metric, let’s look at one aspect of social media : the sharing of information.
In 1998, links were important in the Google Citation algorithm because links were the way that people shared information and gave recommendations online. In 1998, in order to link to something, you usually had to hardcode a link in the HTML of your website. Doing so could take minutes to code, and hours to FTP via dial up, and if someone put that much time into linking to a site … well, that site must be of value, wouldn’t it have?
With blogging, things changed. Blogging came into the forefront in 2003 with Google’s acquisition of Blogger.com and ultimately Google’s launch of AdSense; which monetized blogs and led to a new economic culture of self publishing. With anyone having the ability to launch a blog with the click of a button, any novice now had the ability to link. Links are easier to achieve, easier to manipulate and much more valuable, since the link is no longer the voice of few, but the voice of many.
Enter microblogging and socially networked sharing, with Twitter and more predominantly Facebook. If Twitter is to an HTML link what Facebook is to mass blog linking. This analogy means basically that in my opinion, Twitter will hit its early adopter plateau while almost anyone will join Facebook, connect with friends and share information with others.
What’s our point?
Our point is that if Google is to still work off of a citation based algorithm based on relevant conversations and suggestions of websites using keywords, then the engine is going to have to catch up to the world of social media. Because bloggers don’t just blog anymore, they share thoughts and relevant information on Twitter and Facebook. If Dave’s mom reads something interesting, he’ll share it on Facebook. If Loren’s wife runs across a great recipe, she may tweet it out. Hence, microblogging.
If blogging has become microblogging, then linking should become micro-linking (ie. URL Shorteners).
If Google fails to incorporate social media signals via Twitter & Facebook sharing, TinyURL’s and other conversations … then they would be ignoring the direction of the Internet.
