The Google ego has been expanding for years now. What started out as suggesting the correct spelling for common misspellings led to  Google Suggest in which Google “helps”  you refine your search based on what they believe you are thinking. For the most part, these enhancements were beneficial. I use Google as a quick spell checker and enjoy digging into some of the suggested searches.

Not content with this, Google began to expand beyond prompting for misspelling corrections by now simply opting users into the “corrected” results and giving the choice to choose the “incorrect” term. In short, Google continues to push you to the queries they want you to use.

Obviously much of this is done in the name of “user experience” but you better believe that the final determining fact as to whether these services are successful is whether they bring more ad revenue. If Google can filter your queries to what they know to be desired terms or get you to make more total queries they get what they want: more searches and more money from advertisers.

Instant Search Gives You Results  Google Thinks You Want

Google made a huge splash yesterday with Instant Search. Many in the industry had already  predicted that this would be their big announcement after some reports emerged of it being tested in certain markets. The launch of Instant Search is not a huge shock and in my opinion the impact on SEO is being completely oversold (especially by those who still don’t know what SEO is). Obviously Instant Search will result in some additional optimization opportunities while others may be lost. This happens every time Google or any engine tweaks their results algorithm.  In this case I think the impact will be much greater for Paid Search advertisers, as we noted in yesterday’s post. The important common denominator I want to explore today is the fact that Google’s group ego has grown so enormous that they now believe they should be thinking for you.

Google Believes They Know What You Want Before You Do

Instant search isn’t the only recent announcement that leads me to believe that Google wants users to stop thinking. Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently spoke at the IFA event in Germany where he talked about autonomous search. He showed Google’s cards by stating:

“Ultimately, search is not just the web but literally all of your information – your email, the things you care about, with your permission – this is personal search, for you and only for you,” he said. “The next step of search is doing this automatically. When I walk down the street, I want my smartphone to be doing searches constantly – ‘did you know?’, ‘did you know?’, ‘did you know?’, ‘did you know?’.”

Basically he looks at Google as a way to tell you what you want to know before you know you want to know it. In other words Google should be thinking for you. Instant Search fits into this evolution perfectly. Google is giving you results before you actually finish your thoughts. While I’m sure this was not their intent the fact is they believe the “group brain power” at Google is so massive that their algorithms are smart enough to “tell you” how to search.

This is a trend that has been evolving for a long time. While industry insiders have discussed the expanding arrogance of Google many in the mainstream still consider them to be a benevolent organization, especially as much of the privacy heat has turned up on Facebook.

That appears to be changing slowly but surely and continued moves like Instant Search and Autonomous Search will most likely erode their standing. Google should really re-consider whether they want to continue down this path and further alienate the average user by telling them what to think.

“Don’t be Evil”. It is fairly well known that Don’t be evil is Google’s informal corporate motto. It looks great and gives everyone that sees it a warm and fuzzy feeling that this huge corporation that essentially tracks everything you do online is like a friendly neighbor. Google still has a pretty good reputation as far as corporations go. Unlike Microsoft, the general public still seems to trust Google and truly believe that they are a force for good in the world. Those who have had direct experience with the Google borg, like online marketers, SEOs, AdSense, publishers, etc. have a much different view of Google than do most people. In my experience Google is no different than every other for profit corporation. They are neither good nor evil but they are solely focused on increasing their revenue and profits. That’s why they went to China and agreed to censor search results. They saw the opportunity that was available in China and felt that the free speech wasn’t as important as that extra money that the China market could add to their bottom line.

Intellectual Property Trumps Free Speech

Google happily censored their results and cashed those checks from China until they found out that their IP was compromised. Apparently the Gmail accounts of prominent Chinese human rights proponents were hacked and in the process some of Google’s IP was accessed as well. All of the sudden Google was vehemently against censoring their results in China and they became huge proponents of free speech. Blogs and news sites all across the Internet celebrated Google’s righteousness and spoke glowingly about their defense of free speech across the world. Chinese citizens even jumped on the bandwagon and began laying flowers at the Google China offices like one would do at a funeral. Lost in the celebration of Google’s refusal to censor results was the fact that they had no problem doing it until their intellectual property was compromised. It was only then that they became the “don’t be evil” defender of free speech and civil rights. I don’t hate Google, although I feel they have too much power and control, but I have a hard time heaping praise on an entity that profits from censorship and defends free speech only when they have been harmed.

Google not evil but they are not free speech heroes either

Google is just another monopoly for profit corporation. They are focused on improving their bottom line. If censoring the results in China or anywhere else adds to that they will gladly do it. Just like many other organizations they are beholden to their stockholders and they need to continue to grow and increase revenue. Google may imply that they are different but the fact is that they saw a huge opportunity in China and willingly compromised their results in order to increase their profitability. It wasn’t until their IP was compromised that they became “free speech” activists and “martyrs”. I have a feeling that many other “evil” corporations would do the same thing. So in the end Google gets to come out looking like they care about the rights of the Chinese people but the fact is they are just upset because their rights had been violated and they didn’t like it. Now maybe they know how we all feel sometimes?

Spam is Insidious and Prolific on Twitter

In some ways, Twitter is like the early days of the search engine. There is a lot of great information available but it is continually being overwhelmed by spam. Twitter has attempted to stay on top of the spam situation but they can only do so much and in most cases only catch it after the fact. The real time nature of Twitter means a spammer can send his/her message out all over the Twitters before anyone notices and by the time it is noticed and the spammer is removed the spammer  has 1,000s more spam bots stepping in to continue the assault. Spamming Twitter is obviously profitable for some people otherwise they would not do it. Imagine how much more profitable it will be if those results end up filling up Google and Bing search results.

It Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better

The bigger Twitter spammers are probably salivating at the opportunity to get their crap out to more people via the major search engines. Couple that with the fact that there are probably a few ingenious spammers out there who have ignored Twitter until now.  With the additional reach of Bing and Google these spammers will jump right in and the odds are high that we will see a surge in spam. There a lot of extremely smart people working at Google, Bing, and Twitter who I’m sure are thinking about this and developing a method to combat it. There are also some extremely smart spammers out there who are devising methods to exploit it. Let’s hope that Twitter, Bing, and Google are able to minimize the amount of spam showing up in the SERPs while still providing the benefits that real time search results can bring.

Twitter in the SERPs

There is a huge opportunity to improve SERPs with Twitter if it is done right. If Google does it better they will capture even more of the search market but if Bing is better they may be able to loosen Google’s grip on the search market. There are many different ways to incorporate the results but IMO the first step is to develop a method for removing the spam before worrying about how and when to deliver Twitter results. Whichever engine does this better is going have an advantage and will be able to experiment with Twitter results. The other is going to be fighting a losing battle to clean up their search results. I say good luck to Google and Bing, you’re going to need it.

Speaking in (SEO) Tongues

In the aforementioned decade I’ve spent in the industry I have only come across a handful of clients with even an intermediate understanding of SEO. On a basic level most do understand that SEO is designed to deliver targeted traffic in organic search results pages though we still have experienced some client representatives who don’t yet know the difference between organic and paid results.

Therefore it is important to explain everything – from overall concept and strategy to specific techniques in a manner that the layperson can understand. When an SEO starts throwing around terms like “mod rewrite”, “canonical domains”, “link siloing”, and so forth, the client is going to become confused and probably tune out. Even IT people, who are sometimes involved as a client representative,  can find themselves lost in the woods with this specialized terminology.

When a client doesn’t understand the information being provided they won’t be capable of passing the information along to the rest of their organization and chances are the recommendations won’t be implemented. The end result?  The client sees no improvement in organic search which reinforces the all-too prevalent idea that SEO is a black art practiced by shady snake oil salesmen. When an organization spends good money to get recommendations that they can’t understand or implement, it can understandably fuel organizational antagonism towards SEO.

We have come across a number of clients who have been burned by SEOs in the past. Much of the negative experience can be chalked up to the fact that their previous SEO provided confusing recommendations that they simply didn’t or couldn’t know how to implement. Mistrust of the one SEO vendor then led to skepticism of the SEO industry in general.

Help Clients Understand

While the nomenclature and naming conventions around some SEO concepts can require the use of technical terminology, there are ways to explain them in a client-friendly manner. If a client has a poorly constructed URLs that can be cleaned up using Mod Rewrite it is important to explain exactly what URL rewriting is, how to implement the recommendations, and the benefit that can be gained from doing so. This should be done using simple non-technical language.

Of course some SEOs attempt to impress their clients by using industry specific jargon that’s not understood outside of the search marketing world. This helps no one and in fact can be a red flag.

Our belief as an SEO provider is that clarity should be a core concept. We want our recommendations to be implemented – if nobody understands our recommendations that simply won’t happen.  Quality work doesn’t count if nobody can understand what you have done or are recommending. This is especially so in the world of SEO which relies on a true partnership between the vendor who recommends and the client who implements. Implementation often relies on two steps – the client understanding the recommendation and then being able to explain it throughout their organization.

By providing clients with easy to understand recommendations they will be more likely to implement and see results. This will lead to happier clients and help improve the image of the SEO industry.

Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them here or check out Reprise Media folks on Twitter.

On the other hand, cost can be an overriding factor to the organizations actually paying for SEO services, particularly in this recession.  In many cases they are moving money away from another marketing department budgets such as print or radio. Naturally this leads to internal squabbles as the departments losing budget scramble to justify holding on to as much as possible.

The fact that SEO is an information-based service can make this a minefield for newbies to navigate. After all, there is no media buy so the spend is not as easy to quantify upfront as some more traditional offline investments. Often at the end of the day you end up with some businesses arguing over a few thousand dollars of spend on an SEO engagement without quantifying what the actual value of those dollars may be.

SEO is the Abstract Art of the Marketing World

Most marketing spends are easy to comprehend. Whether it’s a TV spot or a radio ad the marketer is buying media – they can see their ads in the newspaper or on TV or hear them on the radio.  Businesses contract an agency which in turn buys a specified amount of media and reports the results back to the client.

SEO is different. Businesses are not buying media, they are buying the knowledge and skill set of the professional SEOs with whom they are contracting. This makes it seem a little like a “black art” and it can be difficult to justify to high-level executives who are used to an inventory-based view of marketing. SEO can seem like an abstract concept, so rather than finding out what the value of it is, they become  focused on cost.

Myths About Measurement

Most businesses, especially large brands, have been spending millions in print and other forms of traditional media for years. These traditional ads are extremely expensive to buy and even more difficult to track. Sure, there are measuring services like Nielsen that track readers, listeners, or viewers but they rely on panels and sample audiences to construct their data, which is given in the form of an estimate. It does not provide any insight as to whether or not the ad is actually being seen or heard by the targeted audience.

SEO on the other hand can be tracked a number of different depending on the goals of the website.  E-Commerce sites can track which keywords are not only delivering significant traffic but also show which keywords are converting into sales. Publishers who are interested in advertising revenue can see which keywords are delivering traffic and even the keywords that lead to more page views. With a decent analytics package businesses can easily see the impact of SEO from initial click through to sale, page views, lead generation, or almost any other metric the business is measuring. The ROI of SEO can be shown as a concrete fact unlike the return on a print campaign which relies on different models and assumptions to glean the ROI.

Not only is the ROI of SEO much easier to quantify it also has a much longer impact than a traditional media buy. Granted, it does take longer to see return from SEO work but this in turn lasts longer – if proper SEO policies are put into place the impact can be seen for years. With traditional media the return is seen immediately, in the form of the print ad or TV commercial, but once the money is spent the ads no longer appear. Businesses must continue to pay for every ad that is shown while SEO can keep your brand in the SERPs long after the money for SEO is spent. Even with this knowledge many large businesses continue to quibble over a few thousand dollars for their SEO while throwing millions at other less impactful marketing campaigns.

SEO=Value

When done right SEO can help businesses bring in millions of dollars in revenue over the long term while spending a fraction of that in the short term. Organizations that place importance on SEO are seeing the value from it and will continue to see it down the road. Those organizations that get hung up on quantifying the cost of SEO upfront will continue to lose out on the millions of dollars in profit that SEO brings down the road. Think about it:  for the cost of a full-page color premium ad in the NY Times that runs one day, most businesses could pay for a full-scale SEO project and reap the benefits for months or even years.

Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them here or check out Reprise Media folks on Twitter.

Google’s War Has Not Ended Paid Links, its Just Made Them Less Transparent

When this war against paid links was publicly launched last year one of the biggest concerns I had was that it would simply push the paid link marketplace underground. Before the first salvo was fired text link brokers generally operated out in the open and those selling links were transparent in showing which links were paid. Generally you would see a list of links under the heading Sponsored or with some other identifying so that visitors would know that those links were paid for. However with Google showing no mercy by punishing sites for selling paid links, brokers and sellers have decided to be less transparent and often obscure the nature of their paid links. Plenty of sites simply removed the headings that allowed Google to easily identify the links as paid and continued to sell Page Rank passing links on their sites.

Google simultaneously pressured sellers to begin using nofollow protocol on their links – HTML code which basically tells search engines not to include the link when computing the target’s rankings in their search index. The controversy here is that just because a link is paid for doesn’t mean that it is irrelevant. Still Google threatens to punish sites that refuse to add nofollow to their paid links regardless of relevance.

Paid Links Still Work

In my own backlink research I have found that paid links continue to affect Google’s search engine results despite these stepped-up initiatives. Many of the sites that I looked at had a few editorial links but over 90% of links reported were obviously paid links with extremely targeted anchor text. I took a look at the search engine results using the targeted anchor text used in these links and found the sites in question were ranking very well for those keywords. Keep in mind that I was looking at some highly competitive search phrases.

One of the main culprits was a decent enough site but nowhere near a leader in their industry. In my opinion this site did not deserve to rank ahead of some of its bigger competitors. They were not as well known as the industry leaders and their on-site optimization was no better than the others. Their high ranking was achieved simply because they had thousands of anchor text rich paid links pushing them to the top of the rankings.

So what’s the answer?

At Reprise Media we would not counsel our clients to do the quick fix paid linking solution. Yes, it does work, but only as long as you pay for it and there is always the chance that Google will punish your site. The work that it would take to re-build your site’s trust and ranking with Google is simply not worth the risk. Just as important is the need for relevance. It is possible to obtain relevant paid links but in many cases this is not what happens in practice. Though you may increase the flow of linkjuice with paid links the user experience can be compromised and we believe that good marketing has to take this into account. Finally we believe that tricking your users is rarely a good idea – eventually information has a way of surfacing online and the resultant negative publicity is not worth the initial deception.

That being said, there is an argument for in favor of paid links beyond the fact that they do work. Clearly Google’s tactics aren’t working so why not do what has worked in many other asymmetric conflicts around the world and call a truce.

Google ought to allow paid links that are:

1) Clearly identified as such

2) Relevant

These links would be exempt from their nofollow policy. All other paid links – beware! This won’t stamp out paid link spam but it will bring many of these actors back into the light and serve to encourage relevant links – key to the user experience that Google is so concerned about.

Google still needs to find a way to identify paid links or tweak their algorithm to make links less important. Of course with links being the backbone of the Google’s algorithm this is improbable. It may take a community effort or a new service that helps webmasters identify paid links and report them to Google. Certainly by making a distinction between relevant and irrelevant links the online community will have more incentive to report links that don’t follow the protocol I’m suggesting. If Google wants to tackle the paid links issue they must come up with a better solution.