How SEO Relevant is Google for Search?

{ 7 comments }

1 andymurd November 3, 2008 at 12:27 PM Twitter: @andymurd: Interesting question, Ari. I guess that Google could argue that a user has already found their search engine so listing others in the SERPs leads to a better user experience.

Searching for other Google products gives a mixed bag of results:

“maps” has Google maps at #1
“email” has hotmail #1 but gmail #2
“reader” has Google Reader #1 but
“RSS” does not show Google Reader on the front page
“news” has Google News at #9

Disclaimer: Results from google.co.uk, logged in, personalised search enabled so YMMV.

Google do seem to use natural SEO for their own products, which makes sense. As soon as any product changes are announced, a million bloggers start typing and the backlinks flow. The rest of us don’t command such free publicity.

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2 Andy Bailey November 3, 2008 at 12:54 PM: I agree with Andy, google is always going on about how they want to give the user a good results set and seeing as you’re already on google to do the search it would be redundant to include themselves methinks.

Andy Bailey´s last blog post..A collection of Last Suppers
3 rjleaman November 3, 2008 at 4:11 PM Twitter: @rjleaman: Interesting point that andymurd makes about Google’s personalized search, too: where other search engines have (presumably) one standard response to a search query — okay, maybe with some geo-based distinctions — it’s rather like Google has infinite variations, one for each of us who use it, and even those are evolving with every search we run. Fascinating, really. As for Google SEO, when your company name is already a dictionary-endorsed noun, maybe you put your resources into other areas?

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4 rjleaman November 3, 2008 at 4:14 PM Twitter: @rjleaman: Sorry, my typing fingers ran ahead of my brain – what I meant to say, of course, was “company name is already a dictionary-endorsed VERB”!

rjleaman´s last blog post..Webinars: Training on a Shoestring
5 andymurd November 3, 2008 at 5:50 PM Twitter: @andymurd: @rjleaman – David Harry has been checking out variations in Google SERPs and he concluded that location had a far greater influence than personalised search. More here: http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Search-Engine-Optimization/Research-Notes-Google-search-ranking-flux.html

I suspect that personalisation will play a greater role in future but there’s a load of potential problems to iron out. You only have to look at amazon’s product recommendations to see what can go wrong when you try to second guess your users.
6 rjleaman November 3, 2008 at 9:56 PM Twitter: @rjleaman: @andymurd, thanks for that link: this is truly fascinating stuff, and I welcome the food for thought. Amazon product recommendations… ye-es. Point well taken!

rjleaman´s last blog post..Webinars: Training on a Shoestring
7 Ari Herzog November 4, 2008 at 12:41 PM: I’m enjoying reading back and forth dialogue to each other rather than directed to me. If only more commenters on other blogs can have interactivity with each other, something I don’t see in many places. Though, with threaded replies in Disqus and in the upcoming Wordpress 2.7 release, it should be more commonplace.

I have a problem with Google’s personalized search, and it’s something I saw echoed in a recent comment by StumbleUpon’s Garrett Camp. Namely, Google should know what I like to search for and not merely “suggest” results but provide me results based on past searches. So if I never click on a particular website, don’t give that to me up front. Less algorithm-powered and more AI-powered, perhaps?