google’s ‘web history’ is a ticking time bomb for seo
January 11th, 2008
If you have an account on Google, you’ve probably noticed a link entitled “Web History.” Maybe you’re already using it. Signing-up provides the following benefits, per Google:
View and manage your web activity.
You know that great web site you saw online and now can’t find? From now on, you can. With Web History, you can view and search across the full text of the pages you’ve visited, including Google searches, web pages, images, videos and news stories. You can also manage your web activity and remove items from your web history at any time.Get the search results most relevant to you.
Web History helps deliver more personalized search results based on what you’ve searched for on Google and which sites you’ve visited. You might not notice a big impact on your search results early on, but they should steadily improve over time as you use Web History.Follow interesting trends in your web activity.
Which sites do you visit frequently? How many searches did you do between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.? Web History can tell you about these and other interesting trends on your web activity.
Sounds pretty appealing, doesn’t it? Well, maybe.
Probably depends on who you talk to. Privacy advocates won’t be happy. One thing is for sure, however: Web History has the potential to impact rankings like nothing else. Not even links. This is Big Brother on autopilot for those who join, and the data collected will affect every searcher.
Let’s take a quick look at the first two.
1) View and manage Web activity. Google will know everything you do online. And by that activity, they’ll have extensive data on what sites are “good” and which ones are “bad.” And you can bet said data will be of growing significance on the algorithm over time.
2) Get the most relevant searches to you. Customization of search results is nothing new. It just hasn’t been that great. Web History puts the process on steroids. And this phenomenon is gradually putting more and more focus on ROI as opposed to specific rankings.
What to do?
The good (and bad news for some) is that Web History - assuming it hits critical mass (and Google will likely do its best to make sure it does) - truly serves users fantastic results. Not only does it take the best of what machines can do, but it gathers the wisdom of crowds and then personalizes it to have things your way … sorta like a high-tech Burger King.
I get a kick out of sites like Mahalo, who preach human-influenced search results as a way to beat Google. The number of people who are influencing Google results would put Mahalo’s efforts to shame. The difference is, most Google “editors” don’t even know they’re improving an algorithm. All they know is they signed up for a cool service.
The simple truth is, the future of how Google serves-up search results will come down to this: If you’re site sucks, you’re screwed; if it rocks, you’ll be rewarded. The days of manipulating rankings aren’t necessarily numbered, but it’s going to be significantly more challenging.
And the road ahead for search marketing is steadily going to shift from link acquisition and generic content creation to usability, stickiness and superb, original content (in many formats). It’s a simple formula that’s elusive: Be Remarkable.
Those who aren’t prepared will pay a stiff price, likely starting with their pay-per-click budgets … just how Google likes it, by the way.
January 11th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Excellent post, interesting to see yet another of the subtle ways Google is updating its search product.
Using this approach Google seem to understand that the question of “which content is valuable/useful” should be based upon user activity, not links or content keywords.
In the long term I hope this leads to web publishers focusing on the quality of their content (to retain visitors), rather than trying to find new ways to adapt SEO techniques to this new approach.
January 11th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
?And the road ahead for search marketing is steadily going to shift from link acquisition and generic content creation to usability, stickiness and superb, original content (in many formats). It’s a simple formula that’s elusive: Be Remarkable.”
I agree totally. The idea of creating remarkable content really has been the name of the game all along, but many SEOs have chosen to ignore it because it’s HARD to create interesting and remarkable content about a lot of topics. They fail to recognize that it’s just as hard/time consuming/expensive to solicit links and manage all those paid directory listings - and as was seen in 2007 these tactics will soon catch up with them as the engines crack down on links. Not to mention that natural link growth is a byproduct of great content! All in all the personalization of search results is great news for those SEOs who have been focused on the creation of remarkable/interesting/compelling content instead of link building.
January 14th, 2008 at 5:35 am
Right. So if it truly uses that aggregate data to improve the overall results (and not just each individual user’s results based on that user’s behaviour) - how long is it going to take for someone to hire a team of 500 or 5000 people in a cheap offshoring country to click on their site in the search results?
It’ll be hard to game but it’s still gameable.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:48 am
No doubt anything Google does will try to be gamed. The key for them, I think, is to diversify the algorithm to a much greater degree. By diversifying, they make it much for of a guessing game as to what works best and to what degree. Plus, through diversity, they can continually keep SEOs guessing by changing it up now and then.