Pity the poor programmers at major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Live Search. It’s clear that, like Netflix’s recommendation engine, search algorithms as they exist today are so well-advanced that any movement forward is so incremental as to be practically invisible unless you are industry geeks like us.
For anyone who isn’t Google that makes distinguishing yourself a near-impossibility. And if you do happen to be Google (and if you are, I have a venture opportunity to discuss with you strictly on the QT, and hush-hush), keeping searchers on your site and just keeping things interesting becomes a challenging process.
This is in the face of evidence that the search experience still leaves something to be desired for many users. It can take several searches for users to drill down to the information set they are looking for, and even then it might be below the fold or on the second page of results.
So if the algorithm isn’t the answer, what is? For search engines to differentiate themselves from each other there is more significance in serving up results in a more accessible or relevant way than in radically altering search results themselves.
For instance, Google has been testing a new way to display search results called the Wonder Wheel. Only a limited number of users are actually able to see this and there is no indication that Google will be spreading this out to the population at large. In essence the Wonder Wheel is a way to make connections between search terms more visible to users and to surface some content that might otherwise get lost below the fold or past the first page.
Users are presented with a “more options” button on the search reply page which otherwise looks no different than before. Clicking the button however displays a left hand menu with choices like “Recent,” “Forums,” “Videos,” and “Reviews” during product searches. In some ways this is re-shuffling and moving options that already typically exist on Google’s top navigation bar on results page.
What is more radical is the way they represent their “related searches” field, which is where the Wonder Wheel comes in. Rather than listing out another batch of text links the Wonder Wheel offers a visual representation of related terms that the user can navigate. If you click on one of the side hubs connected to your main search, it opens up new connections and suggestions.
We have already covered the advances that Kosmix has made in how they display results and both Yahoo and Live are experimenting with new ways to surface relevant information that rely on changing up how links are organized and displayed rather than any new information.
In reality the next wave of search is coming but it’s permeating results slowly rather than upending the standard ways of doing things. We have talked about Search 3.0 elsewhere, and the changes that are happening that bring search and social media closer together ought not to be confused with the cosmetic changes to search reply pages that started in earnest with universal search results.
Calling the changes cosmetic however is not meant to suggest that they can’t be useful. It’s quite possible that many of these changes will indeed bring pages to light that would have taken a few extra searches to discover.
For advertisers it’s a wake-up call to get all of your marketing ducks in a row. If a user is likely to be presented with a page that more prominently displays a search ad, a deep organic listing, a YouTube video, and a Twitter feed it raises the importance of on target consistent messaging across search and social media. It’s something we’ve pushed for a long time and there’s no doubt it will be even more crucial to successful campaigns in the future.
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