A recent patent from Google suggests a new kind of influence in the rankings that has immense implications for marketers. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand discusses what it says, what that means, and adds a twist of his own to get us thinking about where Google might be heading.
For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard. Click on it to open a high resolution image in a new tab!
Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week let's chat about some things that Google is learning about web searchers and web surfers that may be impacting the rankings.
I was pretty psyched to see a patent a few weeks ago that had been granted actually to Google, so filed a while before that. That patent came from Navneet Panda who, as many in the SEO space may remember, is also the engineer for whom Panda, the Panda Update from Google, is named after. Bill Slawski did a great analysis of the patent on his website, and you can check that out, along with some of the other patent diagrams themselves. Patents can be a little confusing and weird, especially the language, but this one had some surprising clarity to it and some potentially obvious applications for web marketers too.
Deciphering searcher intent
So, in this case, Googlebot here -- I've anthropomorphized him, my Googlebot there, nicely -- is thinking about the queries that are being performed in Google search engine and basically saying, "Huh, if I see lots of people searching for things like 'find email address,' 'email address tool,' 'email finder,' and then I also see a lot of search queries similar to those but with an additional branded element, like 'VoilaNorbert email tool' or 'Norbert email finder' or 'how to find email Norbert,' or even things like 'email site:voilanorbert.com,'" Googlebot might actually say, "Hmm, lots of searchers who look for these kinds of queries seem to be also looking for this particular brand."
You can imagine this in tons and tons of ways. Lots of people searching for restaurants also search for Yelp. Lots of people searching for hotels also add in queries like "Trip Advisor." Lots of people searching for homes to buy also add in Zillow. These brands that essentially get known and combined and perform very well in these non-branded searches, one of the ways that Google might be thinking about that is because they see a lot of branded search that includes the unbranded words around that site.
Google's site quality patent
In Panda's site quality patent -- and Navneet Panda wasn't the only author on this patent, but one of the ones we recognize -- what's described is essentially that this algorithm, well not algorithm, very simplistic equation. I'm sure much more than simplistic than what Google's actually using if they are actually using this. Remember, when it comes to patents, they usually way oversimplify that type of stuff because they don't want to get exactly what they're doing out there in the public. But they have this equation that looks like this: Number of unique searchers for the brand or keyword X -- so essentially, this is kind of a searches, searchers. They're trying to identify only unique quantities of people doing it, looking at things like IP address and device and location and all of that to try and identify just the unique people who are performing this -- divided by the number of unique searches for the non-branded version.
So branded divided by non-branded equals some sort of site quality score for keyword X. If a lot more people are performing a search for "Trip Advisor + California vacations" than are performing searches for just "California vacations," then the site quality score for Trip Advisor when it comes to the keyword "California vacations" might be quite high.
You can imagine that if we take another brand -- let's say a brand that folks are less familiar with, WhereToGoInTheWorld.com -- and there's very, very few searches for that brand plus "California vacations," and there's lots of searches for the unbranded version, the site quality score for WhereToGoInTheWorld.com is going to be much lower. I don't even think that's a real website, but regardless.
Rand's theory
Now, I want to add one more wrinkle on to this. I think one of the things that struck me as being almost obvious but not literally mentioned in this specific patent was my theory that this also applies to clickstream data. You can see this happening obviously already in personalization, personalized search, but I think it might be happening in non-personalized search as well, and that is essentially through Android and through Chrome, which I've drawn these lovely logos just for you. Google knows basically where everyone goes on the web and what everyone does on the web. They see this performance.
So they can look and see the clickstream for a lot of people's process is a searcher goes and searches for "find email address tool," and then they find this resource from Distilled and Distilled mentions Rob Ousbey's account -- I think it was from Rob Ousbey that that original resource came out -- and they follow him and then they follow me and they see that I tweeted about VoilaNorbert. Voila, they make it to VoilaNorbert.com's website, where their search ends. They're no longer looking for this information. They've now found a source that sort of answers their desire, their intent. Google might go, "Huh, you know, why not just rank this? Why rank this one when we could just put this there? Because this seems to be the thing that is answering the searcher's problem. It's taking care of their issue."
So what does this mean for us?
This is tough for marketers. I think both of these, the query formatting and the potential clickstream uses, suggest a world in which building up your brand association and building up the stream of traffic to your website that's solving a problem not just for searchers, but for potential searchers and people with that issue, whether they search or not, is part of SEO. I think that's going to mean that things like branding and things like attracting traffic from other sources, from social, from email, from content, from direct, from offline, and word-of-mouth, that all of those things are going to become part of the SEO equation. If we don't do those things well, in the long term, we might do great SEO, kind of classic, old-school keywords and links and crawl and rankings SEO and miss out on this important piece that's on the rise.
I'm looking forward to some great comments and your theories as well. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.
Hi Rand,
This presentation kind of reminds me that while I am logged into chrome, Google is probably recognizing my past searches and takes into consideration my behavior for the next searches. I believe that Google itself recognized that their goal is to put there the most appropriate website or video or pdf or anything that a user is searching. The path that their taking from introducing the search phrase up until clicking on the final website is clearly a part of the SEO that marketers need to think and make a strategy based on that. Actually that path is kind of the way the link building and establish authority of a website should be done. I mean if I choose moz in may path as a mention or any other website that is recognized online for their work, then the search engine probably will take this into consideration. I also believe the natural history of using the search will be an influential part of the SEO in the future. Basically the idea is to stay natural, be true to the work and created something useful that probably will be seen and clicked by the users.
Yeah - there's obviously a ton of personalization happening in search. I think what's even more interesting is the application of that data (where people go, what they click, what they bounce from vs. stay one, what they search for, etc) in Google's evaluation of sites and pages. Building a brand everyone knows, loves, and searches out can give a big edge in this clickstream-data-informed era of SEO that I think we're entering.
Yeah, I agree with your thoughts.
Personalization and Brand, these both are going to be inevitable truth. We even can't believe how much data Google is gathering for personalisation and for their own analysis purpose such as explained SQ in this WBF. For those who don't know, here are URLs to find some super information Google has gathered for you.
Here is your search history https://history.google.com/history/
Here is your audio search history https://history.google.com/history/audio
Here is your preference Google has formed based on your site visits and history (for their ad serving) https://www.google.com/ads/preferences/
Here is your location history if you are using Google Maps on mobile https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/
To my surprise, the history is stored for All time. Such a huge data to analyse already and adding continuously, it is certain that many more quality signals they will try based on various patterns.
Great points and great links. I'd also add that Google's privacy/terms of use statements give them the right to use this data in pretty much any/all ways they see fit, including aggregating it and applying it to their search rankings processes.
Brijesh, I like your reference link for Google Maps on Mobile History. It will also help me to find out what I search in last couple of days which I forgot generally :-)
Hi Rand
Another great WBF. In the recent AMA session at #SMX between Garry & Danny Sullivan, this was a big part of discussion on how Google might be judging the quality of any website and here you are with a fine analysis. I also saw your recent tweet regarding experiments on "Pogosticking" and I must say that really worked. But still a long click is the only way along with some other factors such as average page on time for a webpage for a particular query, to determine the quality aspect. In recent blog from Bill Slawaski over a patent for this part, the quality score formula was bit different or maybe my interpretation is different. It mentioned:
Site Quality Score= Users Interest In The Site As Reflected In Users Query Directed To The Site/ Users Interest In Resources Found In The Site As Response To Query Of All Kinds.
A Site QS can be used to rank resources or search results, no doubt. But, the Quality parameters is something which would be major part of speculations among SEO's. Garry also mentioned that getting social shares might not be considered as viable signal for quality. We have to wait n watch on how these things unfold.
On that topic, I think AJ Kohn's recent post on the subject of click data was superb.
Yeah, It's a good post.
It increasingly feels like to perform SEO you do not start with the search engine or rankings, in fact to do so is likely to result in a penalty, you start with traditional marketing and build your SEO on top.
To me this feels like a bit of a backwards step as traditional marketing seems to be being boiled down to clickbait and sensationalism. Even reputable places are resorting to these tactics whereas you would only normally associate this type of advertising with low quality/light entertainment products (tabloid newspapers for example).
I totally agree with your first statement, but less so with the second. I think there are an almost infinite number of ways to reach an audience, build value, and create a positive reputation, and while I recognize that many of the most sensationalist efforts stand out (and aren't particularly appealing to me, either), they're far from the norm. Every day new businesses are being built through a myriad of channels and tactics. To me, it's about finding what works for you, your audience, and their influencers.
I should say I am generalizing quite a bit here, there are always going to be alternatives to the mainstream if you like but I have to disagree with you saying they aren't the norm.
I am constantly bombarded on social media with clickbait titles (Reddit, Facebook, Twitter etc) although that does lend itself most significantly to that style of writing, I think it was actually on moz only a few days ago that people are extremely likely to share a link without even having read the article. Clickbait/sensationalism is always going to win out here because how can you compete with that when people won't even read the content!
Mainstream media (I am British so I am going to use that media), BBC, Sky, Top papers - every single one is using clickbait headlines, the BBC is publicly funded and still does this sort of thing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/snooker/30841533, I can't defend this as there is just no reason to do it beyond trying to get clicks/views.
To me, it's about finding what works for you, your audience, and their influencers.
Having said all that, I couldn't agree more with this. 10 Engaged users are still much more valuable to your business/blog/whatever than 1000 who aren't engaged. I recently dumped a keyterm with more than 10x the search volume for a term that made more sense in the context of the page. As you would expect traffic went down, conversions went up.
Hey, Rand! As always great peace of information. To be honest we are doing this way for 9 month already and see significant increase in rankings and traffic acquired via keyword + brand search - we are building associations of our brand and keywords people potentially look for, as an example we have app called Noiseless (cleans digital noise in photos). The very keyword is quiet general but we managed to get our targeted audience, mainly photographers, associated the word 'noiseless' with our brand (Macphun) and see that from 100% search for the keyword 'noiseless' our audience is almost 80%
That is great to hear - and I think your tactic helps build brand loyalty and marketing value in many, many ways, not just helping your search rankings (though it likely may do that, too). Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing your informative experience.
I'm thinking of building an online gambling website called "wheretogointheworld.com" (jk).
This was great man! Thanks for the info! This totally goes hand-in-hand with what's been said in the past about creating quality content, and branding. A great example is the fact that "Hiller Plumbing" (in Nashville, TN) is searched for more than "Nashville Plumber".
Yeah - a lot of brands are like that. Moz actually gets more search volume than many SEO searches, and I think that probably contributes positively to our rankings for many of those search terms.
This also goes for page specific rankings. I did a case study on WaitButWhy a while back, and discovered numbers that correlate with this equation. The site covers a large number of topics, but what is interesting enough is the fact that those topics that tend to have more competition are the ones that rank very high.
This may well be a contributing factor.
Two of the pages ranking high and bringing lots of traffic- The Fermi paradox, and the AI Revolution, are usually searched along with their brand name (Wait But Why).
Sounds like the usual benefit to big brands, and further burial in the rankings of the non-brands... The non-brands will just need to pick their SEO battles wisely and go after what they can rank for
Agreed. I think in 2015, building a brand is part of the SEO process.
Great insight Rand,
Supporting your theory: SearchMetrics published a study on the recent Google Core Algorithm update (they called it "NewsWave").
There was also a relaunch of Google trends on the 17th which SearchMetric's study states "is when the SERP shaking started. The 'search trends' can now be analyzed by everyone in real-time".
Coincidence of algo & trend updates? I don't think so.. And I think the repercussions are huge for marketers.
A quote stood out for me in the report: "That’s why actuality is one the key factors for the Newswave Update. Google’s algorithm can now react immediately on changes in the search volume of specific keywords or trending topics on Twitter, YouTube or Google News."
Replace the word "news" with "brand", include real-time trending capabilities and add the power of social media sentiment and amplification (especially "brand" Google News) and the technology is now here.
What does this all mean?
1) Amplification on social provides indicators (proof) to Google that sentiment for "brand x" is growing
2) Hummingbird's use of natural language processing now better understands synonyms and context - vital for click-stream reduction (shortest "query to answer") with Google's core update.
3) Google wants the best search experience for searchers, so ranking brands / news higher to save clickstream (once travelled) also saves Google crawl budget.
4) Omni-channel marketing (nice report by Julie Krueger from March) is playing an ever increasing role in increasing online retail shopping. Take all the above, add "newsworthy, branded" content and we're well on our way :)
I have always believed that "people asking for you by name" has been part of the algo.
Smart people can help the public ask-for-them-by-name by obtaining a very easy domain name and using it as a call-to-action (not simply including it) in/on their physical products, product packaging, billboard advertising, TV / radio advertising, swag :-), biz cards, YouTube videos, doman (rather than brand) mentions on distributed content (may be more valuable than anchor text), apps, jingles, tweets, and any other thing that you can get out to the public at scale. Heck, while you are at it tattoo it on your forehead, paint it on your car and make some graffiti.
QR codes might be valuable (the next patent?). Short domains, provocative domains, memorable domains, keyword domains (that some people query naturally), domains that play on micromoments, have always been a smart idea.
<rant>They would be total idiots if they were not using this before pagerank. It is so basic that they should not be granted a patent for it. :-)</rant>
Ha! I love that " It is so basic that they should not be granted a patent for it."
Well said my friend :-)
Thank you so much for this article!
Great WBF, this is a really interesting patent and it's awesome that you brought it up.
My only concern is the potential black hat services that might come from this. "Buy 1.000 brand + keyword searches for only $9,99!" with bots all over the place doing these searches, which can screw this up as a ranking factor unless there is a way to combat that.
There are plenty that exist, but click fraud is a problem Google solved almost a decade ago in PPC. They know real clicks and real searchers from fake ones. They know which patterns don't look real and which do. They can spot and discount this stuff pretty easily at this point, and that's why I think you see those services spring up and shut down - they just don't work.
Great topic for WBF Rand!
It's good to remember that a patent doesn't mean that Google is using the methods described in the patent in its algorithms. Patents protect methods that might be used and perhaps as important, exclude others from using the same methods without a license. So Google might incorporate these methods in its algorithms, might protect them but not use them, and also might have patented the methods to extract licensing revenue from someone else.
At SXSW several years ago, Matt Cutts and Duane Forrester were on a panel with Danny Sullivan. They were talking about Search Engine Land's Periodic Table of SEO, and Duane told Danny that there were only 30 or so elements in the Table, but Bing used over 1000 factors in its algorithms. I don't remember that Matt admitted to a specific number of factors for Google, but it's at least a couple of hundred. So trying to capture the complexity of these algorithms and the factors they use and how each factor is weighted is very difficult. The simple proportion you derived from the patent isn't very helpful without placing it in the context of these algorithms. The algorithms are built on AI and NLP and are incredibly complex and adaptive.
So perhaps the best strategy is to make Google's goal your goal. Google wants to serve up interesting, relevant, unique and fresh content to searchers and we all want to be the provider. Focus on doing that well!
I hope that disagreeing with you on this topic won't mean that I'll be seated in the break area at MozCon in a few weeks!
Does this imply that we shouldn't link anymore to anyone because when we rank well for a search term and the people end up on another site they might eventually get our good ranking :-)
My thought exactly - how might this impact external linking? And beyond that, infringing on IP to keep users on-site rather than linking out. If Google is eliminating the middleman, best not be him.
Great WBF as always. An interesting thing to do is look up some stats of traffic numbers from sites that rank well for a given term, and see the list of keywords people are using. Many times, you will find branded searches along some keywords.
This may also be combined with users not being satisfied with a search, and doing it all over only adding brand names. I suspect few of my workout reviews perform well like this. People are originally introduced to the content, and usually come back after a while to leave a comment or to read the response to a comment they have already left. When they search, I guess they instinctively type in the keyword, only to see that the page is not among the first few results. Then they refine their search by adding a brand name next to the keyword.
On the other hand, the implications of your theory are infinite... Imagine someone doing a YouTube search and ending up on a person's channel, or his website... The Art of Manliness is a perfect example. They have lots of video content posted on YouTube, and links within each description pointing to text content on their website. Many people follow these links, and end up reading their articles.
This may well be an additional reason why their relevant text content is ranking high within Google SERPs, as its video content duplicate is ranking high within YouTube results.
Man I would love to see Google using this more.
I think that there is an increasing divide between how SEO can and will work for small locally based businesses and businesses that are competing with real brands.
The old-school build a few good quality white hat links, optimize site pages etc. is still extremely effective in many cases for small local business.
Larger companies with national or international competition have to do other things well BEFORE success in SEO. Things like building large scale awareness through advertising, developing an audience, generating positive press etc. are much important. Great stuff as always, Rand!
Thanks Rand. Wonderful article confirming my own thoughts that branding in relation to SEO will be something very big in the future. Branding and SEO is the next evolutionary step for digital marketing.
Totally agree, Omi. Brand signals are considered now as strong as other factors in the past. And here, we deal wtih something we can learn from semantic web: the importance of coherence in our digital presence. If we are able to offer consistency in all what we do in the web, this is a win for us. Structured data is our faithful friend in this road.
Another great vid Rand. Although it makes sense for Google to make clickstream a ranking factor, it also reminds me of how much of an advantage larger, more established companies have over the small startups. It worries me that as more effort is required for businesses to become discovered online, the more investment is needed for them to be seen, therefore making it less possible for those operating with little to no capital.
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Thank You Rand for this informative post again!
This is definitely going towards a more intuitive analysis of search data but I suspect this could and will lead to some new blackhat methods.. Calling every person you know throughout the country and have them perform a search with "[brand name] + [desired search query]." Albeit, you'll probably need a lot of friends to even make a dent...
Great post though!
Wouldn't this impact digital curation a lot?
Awesome insight on what the patent could mean to SEOs, Rand. For spam defense, if the patent fully implements into Google's algo, Google is probably able to tell VPN/Proxy/Bot searches from legitimate searches through blacklisting ips. The issue is when social exchange sites are used to generate false search volumes to game the algo. Regardless, it doesn't seem to be an issue yet and will probably not be in the future.
Absolutely. As I noted in another comment here, they've been fighting click fraud effectively for a decade in AdWords, and I'm highly confident they can detect real vs. fake searches/searchers.
Hi Rand, they don't need Android & Chrome for this data, they can gather all they need by just watching the clicks and searches on google.
For searches, yes, but for clickstream data (in my latter example - knowing where people go after a search or even without a search), they'd need some access to data about overall web visitation patterns.
Completely agree on the click stream and keyword association info, but I don't see much reason to have SEO's taking on the role of content, email, social, etc. At best, they should be one voice among a group of voices within an organization that are present to help maximize the benefit of a strong, well executed content strategy. Otherwise, let the experts in email marketing, content marketing and strategy, etc. do their jobs.
SEO (IMO) at this point is about:
1) Ensuring search engines and users can access content easily and quickly when and where they want.
2) Ensuring you aren't shooting yourself in the foot somehow. Either technically or with inadvertent low-quality score content, links, etc.
3) Identifying, developing and implementing new opportunities to take up real estate and attract clicks when you do get displayed in results
4) Being a partner voice in a marketing teams discussions to ensure the real activities a business are doing are also aligned with helping meet their target markets usage of search.
Do these things in combination with a real brand and you'll be hitting 80% benefit with 20% effort.
I sort of agree, but I think that, as an SEO, you need to be able to explain, to evangelize, and to encourage investment in all the tactics and channels required to have ranking success, and that's a lot broader than it used to be. Being tasked with producing a result, yet not given the means to accomplish it is insanely frustrating, and I think a lot of SEOs exist in that world today.
It has seemed for a while like other behaviors and interactions around a site have had an influence on search rankings. Especially for smaller brands that do not have a high enough authority to dominate search rankings. Thanks for helping explain what might be going on with search behavior from this Google patent.
Nice WBF as always Rand, the quality patent seems quite simple and natural too. Thing is that we need to focus on building brands rather than just going for keyword hunting. And I am pretty sure that they must be using the data from Google Chrome too, to analyze what users browse more often at what time and location. The Chrome data must also be playing some role in this patent I personally think.
Nice Topic
Rand is Brand.
The same thing is happening with the video searches also, the most viewed videos on a specific topic are ranking well on Google. Are the other search engines following the same rule?
Excited to see more Moz content on this topic. I saw that Rand was doing some community experiments with CTR on his Twitter.
Seems to be a case of "everything that's old is new again."
I cut my marketing teeth back when most ad campaigns were about creating brand awareness. As online channels became more sophisticated in calculating ROI, things like branding became a harder sell - because it's harder to draw a direct line from brand awareness to sale.
With this latest Google change, I wonder if more value is going to start being placed on branding again, and budgets will start shifting back...
Nice! Thank you for your explaination
This sounds interesting, but I don’t see Google putting too much value in usage information. I feel as if Google might turn into a social media search engine if they did this, because only the popular and most visited sites would get listed first. That would take away from Google’s SEO system, where hard work pays off (to some extent at least). Interesting stuff nonetheless, I’d be curious to see this patent put to the test as a separate search engine based off of Google’s index data, just so we could see what the SERPs would look like.
What about a new brand that is trying to make it's way into the market?
For instance, if Expedia.com owns the travel sphere for specific searches, how would a new travel site break into the market effectively that already shows favorites to currently popular sites?
Also, what if I searched for a programming technique and I clicked on StackOverflow.com. My search results are flooded with StackOverflow.com. I do not want that site. It rarely ever gives me the answer I need. Is StackOverflow.com blocking other better search results that may answer my question simply because Google thinks that I like StackOverflow.com?
I appreciate that Google is learning what I like. I do not appreciate it when other better results are pushed out because Google thinks it knows me.
Great stuff. First thing that came to mind was the method of creating words to reference a brand or post. Similar to what Brian Dean did with the Skyscraper method. It wasn't anything special until he was able to get the word out there about that "method". So, in theory, one could leverage this strategy and influence behavior...provided people used the word/phrase.
Wow so many ranking factors when it comes to Google. As much as I do love Google and see its importance in thr Inbound Marketing community I would love to see some Whiteboard Friday that are devoted to Bing. The ranking factors are just so different for the search engines and like it or not Bing may send less traffic to sites but I wouldn't consider the traffic that it does send irrelevant.
Thank you very much @Rand.
Thanks for sharing this amazing and insightful information. Indeed, internet users become more specific every time they to such queries.
So what's really interesting to me about this is that the incentive here might be for strong brands to make their site less usable so as to push people back to Google to get them to find what they need on that site in order to influence quantity of brand searches.
I would guess that this is how brands have a leg up in search.
Hi Rand
Another awesome WBF
My question is what if someone tries to increase searches of there brand by using "brand name" + "Keyword" will it effect search engine ranking for that website ?
Regarding your theory at the end, do you really think Google are crawling Tweets to the depth AND putting that level of emphasis on the data within? Also, how many steps removed would still be relevant to to rank the "end" source?
P.S. I thought you had said you'd not wear those white glasses on WBF again!
In regards to the Tweets. If i am not mistaken Google Trends was just relaunched and Twitter is one of the big ones they follow... putting relevant news stories on SERPS so i would assume they have to put a great emphasis on them.
correct me if im worng.
Do Android devices report all user data back to Google, even cross app? Meaning if I Google something then open the Twitter app, run a search, then click a link within a tweet, does the OS report that whole string of events back to Google? I don't see how Twitter, Facebook, etc would permit the OS to track user activity within an app. Or do they not have a choice?
Well, Twitter's a bit of a different story since Google & Twitter now have a data partnership. However, I think certain types of cross-app behaviors can be tracked, though given elements inside an app may remain hidden from Google. Certainly any request to the OS or any request that requires a pull from an external source could be seen and recorded by Android (same is true for iOS on Apple devices).
Man... this realization just hit me like a ton of bricks. Can't believe I've never considered the magnitude of what owning the OS on so many devices means for Google. Kind of crazy.
So this just kinds of discourages outbound linking doesn't it? Because when you link out from your site, Google might think that the last page they went to is the better result. Thoughts?
Unless you are expecting Wikipedia to take a dive down the rankings, I doubt this is true. I would expect that, provided you are not just producing a list of links, the fact the user has engaged with your site directly (clicked on a link) it would actually be beneficial to your site.
Hello Rand,
Some good insights there, I can predict that google will take up to those websites which already became brand. In all these matrices, non-brand website will get kick. However, they are providing the best information, selling good things, but not that much old in the market so they are non-brand and its not an easy task to beat a popular brand.
So, basically this is unfair with those who are non-brand website, but as usual benefit for popular brands.
Interesting. It sounds like Google knows almost everything about everything. Not sure if this is a good thing or not. :)
Great insight. I like how you said it pertains to marketing a brand. Patents are always a good idea if the product is out there or on someone's mind.
Another insightful WBF Mr Fishkin.
I have believed for some time that Google must using user behaviour to aid and determine search positions. Could this also relate to bounce rate too, where by, if a user does not find a site necessarily useful and then quickly moves on to another which is, is the first site likely to be downgraded in favour of the winning end site?!
Having a brand as a trigger surely is definately key, just look at the number of people will search "Amazon + Product".
Nice WBF.
About Rand's theory: I think this is unbelievable complex (even for Google), as users, as myself, are using more tabs and even more screens in my webbrowser. During searches I will switch between tabs and screens to multitask so how does Google what tabs and screens correlate with what task or search.
I'm surprised there is no mention of asymmetry here.
Could you expand a little on which application of asymmetry you mean? The asymmetry of information between Google and searchers?
Very informative WBF.
This patent, and potential future algorithm update, will reinforce the need for absolutely stellar content and for companies to really communicate their expertise in their industry. Small businesses especially will need to intimately understand what their niche is, what makes them different and better than their competition, and tell their story through well-researched and well-written content.
Good presentation.
Question - If Google does continue to use (and increase the use of) the data from Chrome, etc. to determine which brands, preferences, etc. to serve you, doesn't that create a virtual echo chamber in which your existing research is reinforced with similar data and increasingly smaller chances of seeing contrary data and opinions?
n a world where every customer wants to feel "special" and have products tailored for them, Google is taking a step in the right direction with this. Even though the customer might not know it, they want their search time to be decreased as much as possible. Google is already fast and effective, but if they can start to predict what searchers want to find then it'll make them that much better. I'm pretty sure if they can perfect the "search intent" mechanism, that even more people will use Google (I mean pretty much everyone uses it anyway). The patent makes it so much interesting, because it's going to be a guarantee that Google will want to control this sort of intent software. I'm pretty excited to see what they come up with and how I can find my sites easier in the future.
I have a few comments for a few people here:
@erick: stop saying "quality content" say "super amazing content"
@LSIversen: Unfortunately these bots already exist. Which is why these algorthims make me so angry. It's as if nobody in Google is actually think a few steps ahead.
My comment to this wbf. Branding isn't something new. It just nice to see how much it is a factor. Even though I'm not a marketing guy I've become one because SEO and marketing have intertwind.
I honestly can't say I'm surprised that they exist, but at least they're not fullblown EVERYWHERE - yet. At least not from what I've seen, but maybe that depends on the sites/searches I look at.
I would still be surprised if this thought hasn't crossed Google's mind, as it is just too obvious of a way to trick the system for them to not consider it. What they're doing about it though, is hard to say.
Logical Theory. We can accept this from google no doubt. For brands its import to have benefits from Clickstream behaviour. Atleat no chance for blackhat dudes. :)
Nice Catch rand :) I am gonna write post on my blog about this logic..
Rand, by "click stream" are you referring to CTR as well?
I noticed you had performed a "test" within Twitter for "how to grill a steak" or whatever it was and user behaviour effected the search results.
Hi John - no, by clickstream I mean the path by which web surfers follow links and content to browse around the Internet. Clicks on search results would be something else, and though that appears to also be a signal Google uses (as that experiment showed), it wasn't the subject on this Whiteboard Friday.
This makes a lot of sense. Very insightful.
That's really interesting.
However, from what I've noticed, a lot of the big players run TV ads that drive a lot of people to start searching for terms that relate to the brand + keyword, which costs millions. What of the little players who can't afford to pay for big expensive TV ads that are driving those searches for some of those big sites?