Monday, November 24, 2008

We're gonna have to go to the public vote....

As I have previously mentioned, Google's main aim is always to make the experience of using their page as perfect as possible and the end user is always the winner. It's a fact that whilst many people's internet usage starts with Google, it's very often spent on many other pages that the Google SERPs throw up (Search Engine Results Pages). Google even solves questions that no-one knows the answer to - don't know, ask around, no-one else knows, ask Google. New SERPs also have started to include a personalised list of results, based on your search history (something which can be turned off, but I'm sure many don't).

Google's new Search Wiki is now enabling you to completely control your own SERPs. Currently unavailable on Google.es, but available on .com and .co.uk and assuming you're logged in to your google account, the search results come with some new graphics by the side of each result. These include up and down arrows, a cross and a speech bubble. Google has basically turned it's SERPs into an interactive page where you can promote, demote, leave comments/valuations and even erase a result on the pages you have visited.

Barcelona SEO - Google Wiki
Let's look at the above example in the image. I used the search term Apartments for Rent Barcelona and was able to bump the page www.bcn-rentals.com from page 2 to page 1. Let's say I had browsed brefily the first 20 results, and then decided to rate them in order of importance - this would be reflected each time I re-visited the same SERP. Whilst Google claims that this new tool is to improve the individual search experience, we can't ignore the fact that this may influence organic results in the future.

Other bloggers have commented that this would effectively render AdWords ineffective, but I disagree. The AdWords ads would still appear as they do now in the example I've shown, along side the real organic results or the Wiki results. You could still choose to click on the ads or not, just that these can't be moved.

I have another possible theory. If we assume that real people performing real searches do actually take the time to promote and demote even just the first 5 results on a SERP, and that little by little Google relfects this movement of the people into the real organic results, then the public very much is deciding on the rankings and results.

As always, people will be thinking of ways to cheat the system. So here's my niche market:

A software programme that gives you a constant dynamic IP, changing location all the time all over the world. This way SEO's can sit all day on their computers and "bump up" their own pages to the top supposedly from different individual IP's in the hope that this will have some kind of effect on the organic results. Sounds stupid? I bet you it would sell like hot cakes. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

AdWords Management Barcelona

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