What's the Impact for SEOs?
- Rank Checking is Less Universally Accurate
While not the biggest tragedy, it's certainly a bit frustrating to know that rank tracking (manually or with tools) may provide somewhat less authoritative data than before. Though, to be honest, rank tracking has always been about establishing a baseline, not about exact results (see previous posts on this). Still, if you've been using this data to see how you fluctuate in the "normal" (non-personalized or geo-targeted) results, it's still solid for that purpose and may actually help you determine if you're gaining or losing in the new, personalized world (if you get more traffic but rankings stay the same, personalized might be helping; if you gain rankings but don't proportionally benefit in search traffic, it may be hurting).
_ - The Rich Get (Even) Richer
Those at the top of the results, who "own" the queries around their niches are likely to benefit disproportionately as mid and long tail queries that would once have shown more alternative sources will now bring up those "previously visited" sites even if their traditional relevance and popularity scores wouldn't have earned them a top position. This will likely contribute to some lowered diversity in the results, but may help fight against low quality re-publishers and content aggregators in favor of trusted brands.
_ - User Experience & Branding Boost SEO (Even More)
It's always been critical to make users love your site, but now the direct SEO impact can be felt even more strongly. Sites and brands that "suck at SEO" may even find themselves performing better if their users love them and the pages are, at least, accessible to engines. I'm buying Steve Krug's new book - Rocket Surgery Made Easy - ASAP either way :-)
_ - Buying Traffic May Now Help Organic Results
If Google really is using signals from all sources of data, the paid results and their impact on search and visit history might now give a boost (indirectly) to positioning in the organic results. In fact, it could be that even services like Google AdSense or other paid advertising that leads a visitor who's logged in to their Google account and using the toolbar (or other detectable methods of tracking) will "count" towards the personalization metrics. I expect lots of SEOs to start testing and reporting on this soon.
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What Should We Do Differently in our Campaigns?
- Get More Visitors (Any Way We Can)
Depending on how Google is counting visits and traffic (which they haven't and probably won't ever fully disclose), any way you can drag a visitor to your site and give them a good experience is likely to positively contribute to your chances of ranking better in personalized results.
_ - Improve Brand Loyalty
SEOs haven't classically focused on brand metrics and branding as a marketing practice, but it's long past due. The benefits of building a strong brand are evident everywhere in the consumer (and B2B) marketplace. Now Google's giving us one more reason (and a more direct one at that) to start earning visitors' love and, in turn, be rewarded by higher rankings.
_ - More Tightly Integrate Metrics w/ Rank Tracking
Again, this has been a wise move long before personalization, but with the expansion comes renewed need for weaving together the 3rd-party tracking of rankings with the traffic metrics from your analytics to provide a full picture of how your site is performing in the search engines.
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The big takeaway here is that these action items aren't particularly groundbreaking. We should have been doing all of these as responsible, effective Internet marketers anyway.
Is this a Major, Tectonic Shift in SEO?
No. I'm maintaining my previous stance that unless a shift from Google fundamentally changes the classic SEO process:
- Make pages accessible
- Target with keywords that searchers employ
- Build content that users will find useful and valuable
- Earn editorial links from good sources
It doesn't qualify as a "tectonic" or "massive" or "fundamental" change in SEO. The best practices we've been recommending to clients, developers and content creators for the last half-decade are actually less impacted by this change than by some of the other items we've encountered recently (Bing + Yahoo! combining, real-time results at the top of query results, more vertical results in the SERPs, etc.). These latter examples call for much more active changes, learnings and direct action on the part of SEOs vs. personalization, which by-and-large just strengthens the reasons for best practices we've long known to exist.
p.s. Tomorrow evening at 6pm (Tuesday Dec. 22nd), I'll be attending an informal SEO meetup in San Diego, CA at the Gordon Biersch Brewery in Mission Valley - 5010 Mission Center Road San Diego, CA 92108. Hope to see some of you there before the holidays!
The end is nigh waaaaaaah!
Ha! Just joshing.
To be honest I've been thinking more about the impact on usability for Google. For example, say you're at your friend's house, she might really really love spinning (wool) but you might really really love spinning (the exercise).
Will you friend's love of spinning (wool) destroy any chance of you finding information on spinning (exercise) if you search for 'spinning' on his/her computer?
What about public machines that have a crazily varied volume of search history (stick with me - pretend that the cookies etc aren't deleted) - how will Googleserve personalised results to them?
Is personlising results more and more just going to get really annoying? Should I have made this comment more SEO related?
Who knows...
My biggest question, which is in line with what you've brought up here, is what if I don't want results for what I normally search for? I mean isn't the web supposed to show me "what's out there", not just "what applies to what they think I want"?
Take the spinning for example. Will the results for the wool spinning be so localized and personalized that she won't ever see results for stores or sites around the world? What if there are better wools in another country, will I see those?
This is something that has bothered me ever since the start of personalized search. I want to see the web, not what the web things I want to see (to the extent that spam doesn't get out of control).
Exactly! Personalized search may be good for some, but for me it is a handicap. I write and I search for interesting stories and content that most of the time has very little realtionship to my past searches.
I have found that I have to switch search providers to gain the best results. I use Bing, Yahoo, Google, Comcast, and others to get variety.
Personalized search, for myself, is a pain.
That's an even better example. People in the design industry or the information industry need to find new outlets all the time, and many times not about or in the same direction as when they last searched. So why should we be filtered by what we previously did. That was then this is now, let me have my results I want now! (IMO)
"My biggest question, which is in line with what you've brought up here, is what if I don't want results for what I normally search for? I mean isn't the web supposed to show me "what's out there", not just "what applies to what they think I want"?"
Exactly! You can do too much second guessing.
This raises an interesting point. In limiting the diversity of search results experienced when using public (or otherwise multi-user) browsers, or even those within an individual's search results, we'll surely see the long tail becoming even more relevant, or some previously low volume searches becoming more prominent.
For example, people may start refining their first searches more, such as entering 'spinning exercise classes' rather than relying upon the initially simpler search for 'spinning'.
Optimising sites for the long tail? As Rand asserts, existing SEO best practices still apply.
Good point - but even using long tail search won't get around the personalisation problem completely, Google will still deliver more specific personalised results which may still exclude sites you might want to find (as IgniteMedia pointed out above).
Hmm I have personally disagree on couple of points most people mention when it came to personal search which Google announced which is already in motion.
One is rich even get richer thing which you have mentioned in this article too, Its not just you make a single click on particular search term it will automatically get the page you clicked to the top next time you make the search for the same query next time. you might notice the results will still be based on other ranking factors in Google algorithm. Unless otherwise you want to check out the same page again and again more than a dozen times, which is a rare case in my opinion, so new sites still got some room to show up on people's search results and people who really influence your sites are unique visitors and a person when he finds the information what he is looking for the first time is less likely to look for the same over dozen of times or on the other hand if he is obsessed with the site he looked for he will most likely to bookmark the site or go directly to it which again is less probable.
Buying traffic:
I don't think buying traffic will be of much help if provided Google uses signals from all sources of data as we want to assume here, its higly likely that your bouce rates would be high when you buy traffic and according to ERR metrics bouce rates are considered bad for a site rankings and not only that, where will Google be able to influence its rankings? it needs the keyword which user has to type in to look for a page and then it looks in to bounce rates of each search results on the whole and re-arranges search results accordingly for that perticular term. But when you buy traffic, visitors are not coming from Google and its highly likely that ads or whatever information you gave for your ads to buy traffic may not possibly relate to Google datas meaning your page might not actually show up for the term you have used in your ads to buy traffic. So it makes no sense.
Sorry I am not being offensive but these are just my thoughts, I really don't think this whole speculation over personalized search results and all those things going to influence your SERPS in a major way like its assumed in my opinion.
Regards
I think we're actually in agreement on most of these.
First, I didn't mean to suggest (and on second reading don't think the text implies) that you'll automatically get bumped up to the top of the rankings after one click. Instead, I mean that the more you earn high rankings that get clicks, the more those will re-inforce higher rankings for those visitors who've previously chosen your site in the SERPs.
Second, I think it's still up in the air as to what data sources Google might use for personalization. It's almost certainly beyond just clicks in the SERPs, but whether it extends to toolbar usage, analytics, traffic data they buy or acquire, ad stuff, etc. is unknown. Still, anything you can do to give users familiarity with your brand and an incentive to click your results over others (even if you're ranked lower naturally) will have a potentially positive impact on organic rank in the future.
Great post again Randy,
Not entirely related but in the last update our sites PR went up but our SERPS went down from 3 to 8 for our keywords. our site only has about 2500 links but a very high percentage of links from pr 4 to pr 7 and I was told that google was discounting PR in its SERPS to stop people selling links which would explain the slip down those rankings and certainly on one of our sub pages which had one very powerful link.
Just wondered what your take was on this and how a site with our link make up needs to look at what it does with regards to personalised search changes.
Our SEO is very much built on your formula where we have a lot of online content but write articles for other sites and not only PR sites.
Thanks for the information
Nick
For me Rand, the part that is somewhat troubling is "...Rank Checking is Less Universally Accurate..." which will mean for many of our clients, that our serp reports will look like we're guilty of some kind of rank stuffing. That if they check themselves, under the new G-PS paradigm, that they'll get diff results...which I know will bring phone calls...sigh.
That said, yes, it is very interting to try to determine the "how" of G counting visits/traffic for a client site to get them to rank higher and yes to become an "owner" of that keyword search page....fun!
:-)Jim
PS Rand, have an Xmas beer for me would ya?
I see people commenting on that bought traffic will increase the bounce-rate, which will decrease the value (in Google's eyes) of the site in the SERP.
That totally depends on WHAT traffic you're buying. Sure - If you buy 1.000.000 clicks from some ad-network out there on some RON solution, you will most likely have a massive bounce-rate since that traffic is most likely not relevant for your business.
Best,
Magnus Lundin(edit from Rand: Removed Link)
yes but Google rankings will not be influenced by the.. traffic you buy that's the whole point :)
I hope I don't sound like I missed the point of the post, but whoo hoo! I had no idea Steve had written another book. I have both dog eared editions of "Don't Make Me Think" and if I had known about "Rocket Surgery Made Easy" it would have been my #1 pick for Christmas. He is hilarious and really easy to understand and implement.
OK, now back to topic. I probably sound like a broken record by now but everything I read now I see through the lens of conversion optimisation. 2010 is the year for focusing our "SEO" efforts on creating more usable sites.
More users will stay instead of bounce, more users will return for more seamless experiences. It will be a win win for site owners as well as site visitors.
EXACTLY!!!
I think we're going to move towards a more usable web because of this change. The more I think about it, the more I think we're moving towards something that should have been happening when the internet first got created.
Let's just wait and see what it brings.
Bring on the infographics!!!
We saw several months ago the move towards brands being ranked highly regardless of what was actually on the site (I believe an example cited was that of airlines/air fares) and this is a continued move towards brands being given more power.
As much as some people will have a paddy over this, it is a good thing because search engines should be returning the most relevant and useful results - which is NOT necessarily the best optimised site. Frankly, most people feel more secure around brands they have heard of so the search engines need to be returning them when appropriate. Yes, it makes it harder for the little guy but that's life, just got to find new and innovate ways to get around it.
Always an oasis of commen sense, Rand, thank you. I've a lingering question, 'though...
"...any way you can drag a visitor to your site and give them a good experience is likely to positively contribute to your chances of ranking better in personalized results".
Do you mean "any way you can drag a visitor [via Google]", or do you believe that gaining links from blogs etc will contribute to Google's overall personalization ranking?
What I mean by this is that, whilst link building has obviously long had other important SEO benefits, do you believe that direct referral traffic (i.e. traffic that bypasses the Google search engine) will still be recognised and considered by Google when personalizing results?
I can't see how that is possible without Google stretching privacy laws to the limit (i.e. recording internet activity that is not conducted via it's own search engine or some other Google account tool or portal).
Referral traffic is clearly going to become even more important to sites looking to replace or add to traffic gained or lost through search personalization, and will continue to have broader SEO benefits (such as page rank etc), but I'm struggling to see how it will impact personalization results directly?
All the best
Dave
I suppose from any site on the net... Analytics already shows which site referred the visitor...so as long as you have analytics installed Google knows all!
I had a job interview with an SEO company that didnt use google analytics as they believed the bounce rate etc affected the SERPs, at the time I wondered whether that was the case, but it appears it may be happening.
I have to agree with the main point raised however, produce good quality unique content and people will want to visit your site..
Yeah - my suspicion here is that traffic sources other than direct Google referrals are going to fit into the personalization system eventually. Even if it's just the second order effect of creating a positive brand impression that makes people want to click your SERPs over the competition, that still has a positive impact on rankings in the future.
I don't know...i think not having accurate ranking reports actually hurts SEO's a lot. Reporting on overall traffic and sales is great but can sometimes be innacurate. Rankings should be an important part of an SEO's reporting structure if he wants to prove his worth to a client...IMHO.
I don't know...i think not having accurate ranking reports actually hurts SEO's a lot. Reporting on overall traffic and sales is great but can sometimes be innacurate. Rankings should be an important part of an SEO's reporting structure if he wants to prove his worth to a client...IMHO.
Great post Rand just before christmas! hope google gives us all some rankings (wrapped up of course) heres my festive retort over personalised search.
I really appreciate the long post.
Very helpful and encouraging that what I have been doing in SEO will still work!
Great article, Rand. Tracking the baseline of progress is where long term success lives. Many SEOs out there tend to be too reactionary and this calm and collected approach is something we all should remember. The sky isn't falling!
However for fun, I am predicting there to be a blip of "happy" SEO clients out there as they watch their own site (visited often most likely) jump in ranking. Now, how many SEOs out there are NOT going to take the credit for that when it's just the personalized search boosting the ranking for that user. Hah!
Since I think of myself first like many of us here, this move by Google will make it more difficult for SEOs to show ROI and gain new clients. More and more people will seek blackhat solutions as in "anyway we can".
This is a great article and one in which I totally agree. Back in October of 2008 I wrote a post titled, "The Future of SEO is User Experience" (https://paulpedersen.com/blog/2008/10/the-future-of-seo-is-user-experience/). For several years user experience has mattered, and not just because of those inbound links you get from having a great product/site. This change regarding how Google displays their search results only steps it up a notch. I still think there are more changes to come that make user experience one of the most essential elements of SEO.
I agree totally ! the impact of caffine !
Please correct me if i'm wrong...
...but isn't the personalised search simply a cookie based exercise?
So in clearing your cashe will rectify any 'tampered' results?
Paul Martin
Cube3 Marketing
I thought it was more to do with IP address/browser/etc?
I doubt Google's algorithms would rely on cookies and the cache.
Actually, Paul, Google defaults back into search personalization mode once you clear your cookies.
Our company recently developed this Firefox add-on (Google Camo) for SEOs who may be frustrated by this feature.
Download here: www.iexposure.com/googlecamo
Once installed, it automatically opts users back out of personalization, saving you the hassle.
If you happen to download it, let me know what you think!
Thanks!
www.iexposure.com/googlecamo
Has anybody really tested if buying traffic helps?
Quick freebie for fellow SEO pros: Just posted a Python snippet to ease the tracking woes in this bold, new personalized search world. I'd post it here, but Python, in all its glory, is whitespace sensitive and may not paste so well here. Instead, follow through to this location.
Hi !
Thanks for this very complete post. It can help make things clear for a lot of people.
Would you mind if I translate this post (and a part of the debate in the comments) to French for my french SEO blog ? Email me if you want its URL, I don't want to beg a link ;-)
Keep me up, thanks !
Rand, are you in the UK any time soon for any conferences or talks?
Do you think switching to [or adding] a Google search box for internal search makes sense? If it was set to only return results from your own site it seems that may increase the user loyalty towards your site in Google's eyes.
I have to think that it will open to door to many local competitors who currently don't rank because of directories, yellow pages, etc.
More accurate competitors will mean less traffic for us. I think dominating the SERPs is an option but your YouTube videos, Social Media Profiles, and diggs/bookmars are not going to show up on page one without a lot more work.
No matter what I've read here in the past year, it always seems to come down to accessibility, good content with smart keywords, and links. Everything else appears to be a slight variation. Thanks for the new tips and the confidence that mastering the basics will still be the best thing to do for people starting out with SEO. Happy Holidays, SEOmoz!
So it´s not much about rankings any more, it´s about user experience on the site and conversions. So for that we need to Build a strong brand as you mentioned Rand, and drive traffic: using PPC AdWords (this is what Google wants at the end) and "He" will love you...
Fortunately Google's competitors especially Bing would make a large amount of capital out of such a move by Google.
I think listing and optimizing for Local results is also very important. I find having social stuff come up in results just annoying.
Have to admit, I don't like the changes. Makes it too hard for me to see what's happening with my results.
I am not new to website design, I am very interested in trends with seo. I am concerned with links both incoming and outgoing, whether meta tage are still important, titles, sub category placings vs primary placement. Text enrichment in title, description,
Adword significants of ppc contributions, product submissions to google, yahoo.
Last question:
first 3 things to do for the future for SEO
Thanks
Alan
Great article, quick question Rand (and/or others).
Do you think google might ever use personalised search result data to modify the search results of users other than ourselves?
For example, if a large number of users within a given locality are searching for "car MOT garage" initially we might expect to have a large number of non-local, well optimized, uk wide search results - but, by taking in to account the personal browsing tendencies and results of others within the local area Google could weight the likely relevance of these rankings to the user in question and therefore provide instantly more relevant results.
This wouldn't have to be limited to locallity, Google could use a whole host of other features, for example, rating users with similiar search preferences, ages, sex, ethnicity, sexuality etc etc.
Do you think this is a likely outcome? Surely the browsing habits of the billions who use the internet (and Google) to produce an organic, almost brain-like search system, is just the next stage in producing relevant search results (as well as saving Google a shed load of hassle by taking a great deal of weight off their own algorythm).
What's more, it would be almost impossible (as far as I can see) for spammers to exploit this system since it would require them to replicate the browsing habits of thousands of individuals in millions of localities, even more if the definition of "local users" was not limited to discreet waypoints such as cities but allowed to form a continuous representation based on distance.
Apologies if I haven't made myself very clear, if people are interested in this thought let me know and I will make an effort to explain more clearly.
Thoughts?
an organic, almost brain-like search system
"I'm sorry, I can't let you search for that, Dave"
Sounds a bit 2001 freaky to me.
Edit: poor spelling
It's possible, but I'd have to see data (and so would Google) suggesting that people actually prefer these types of results. One thing that is a bit frustrating is that Google has become almost navigational in many ways, and it would be frusrtrating for users to say "Google X" but have that produce different results for different people to a large degree. Some personalization is good for relevance and quality, others can be damaging to Google's own "virality."
I'm concerned about what personalised search is going to do to our job though I've always had one feeling about it: most of the time, it won't even matter.
Some people may disagree with me but if I usually search for, say, a red widget and visit the same site regularly via Google, then it will appear at the top right? Thus, being personalised.
Whereas, in walks Mr. Sean E. Orwell (see what I did there) who has optimised for 'electric-blue anti-widget device', and I search for that, it will come up first - thus not affecting that search, right? Or am I getting this completely wrong?
In a nutshell; I'm very happy about the move to personalised search and it concerns me that certain aspects of our job are going down the drain.
However, our jobs are still important and finding links, writing for SEO, getting visitors and doing good marketing campaigns will always be key. In my opinion.
Note: Apologies if I contradicted myself here. It's 01:24 here in the United Kingdom and one doesn't function well early in the morning! Bring on Christmas.
Merry Christmas to anybody reading this comment by the way. Have a good one.
I think that if Google are set on pushing forwards with personalised search, it should be in a seperate space on the SERP.
It makes no sense, IMO, to manipulate the results based on my past browsing history.
As already mentioned, if I make a search I want to see other results - hence "searching".
Very good point there.
In a way they're forcing results as opposed to making them come more naturally.
Once again a great post.
There is one thing you didn't mention - I believe that irrelevant entries in SERPS that were accomplished with different black hat techniques (we all now the "download something" free torrent results :) ) will be cut out and thrown away by the visitors themselves.
I'd say that "irrelevant" results are already a thing of the past (by and large). That era was really over in 2003-4. Today, I think they're fighting relevant results that have manipulated their way to the top more so than anything else.
Great post Rand. The only beef I have with Google's personalized search is that it's turned on by default without the user knowing - and the only way to turn it off is manually by the user! Granted, it only takes 3 clicks to turn it off, but it's not announced or made obvious. This will impact SERPS over time based on search patterns for that one user instead of the internet as a whole. The catch 22 is if the user wants to see SERPS based on patterns from the internet as a whole, personalized search has to be turned off, but the average user doesn't even know that it's on!