Google Universal Search

Google has a hard job as it is. Sifting through millions of webistes on a daily basis is a tough enough job, without trying to include other sources. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a Google Geek, but I wanted to try and explain about Google's idea of a Unversal search.

Everybody knows that Google bought YouTube and that shortly afterwards, Video results were incorporated into Google's search results. Apparently Google wants to become as broad as possible, and when the user types in a search phrase, wants to give as many options as possible, be it maps, books, video, images, websites, blogs, etc.

So how does Googlebot decide how to rank the results? As I have already mentioned in previous posts, inbound links to your site highly influence the rankings of your search terms. However, Google is all about the end user, and wants to try and make the experience of using their search engine the definitive one.

A great example of this can be seen if you type "Barcelona Metro" into Google.es. The first 3 results are maps of the Barcelona metro - but the words "map" "plan" or "layout" have not been included in your original search string (or "plano", "mapa", etc.). So why did Google rank these results above other textual based results? The answer is that the end user will have clicked more on the plans and maps of the Barcelona metro whilst using the same search string therefore Googlebot sees this as the most relevant and bumps it up to first place.

The first news about Universal Search was way back in 2007, and SEO's worldwide, I'm sure were worried as to the impact on those hard earned 1st page results. However, sticking to Google's guidelines, and refraining from Black hat SEO can still be a successful method towards gaining the results you want.

I offer courses covering all topics on this Barcelona SEO Blog, including Universal Search and how to maximise your website to exploit the algorithms involved. Please contact me for details or eqnuire about SEO Training in Barcelona.