Google's new universal search initiative incorporates some of its vertical and specialized search results into the main search engine results page. Google has been working on this since 2001. The first iteration of universal search right now centers on video, news, local, and books. Searches with video results showcase the most dramatic changes. For instance, for a search on “Coke Mentos”, Google includes three videos in the results, two from Google Video and one from YouTube. Each of the video results has a thumbnail image from the video, along with a "watch video" link which, when clicked, opens the video right in the body of the results. All three of those videos can be played at the same time. It looks like the purity of text-only search results is waning at last.
Typically, marketers have one of three reactions to the universal search news. Some say they have been anticipating this since 2001, and have aligned their search engine optimization strategy along these lines for years. There are others, who have been thinking this way for a while, but haven't done anything about it. However, some marketers feel they are screwed, and this is where the holistic SEO strategy comes into play. Right now, one has to optimize around all of Google's vertical and specialized offerings, namely news, video, and local. This is how universal search works. Consider a search on Google for a newsworthy topic. Previously, Google would sometimes feature listings from Google News atop the 10 natural listings on the first page. If links from Google News didn't merit appearing up top, then that section wouldn't appear at all. The inclusion of Google News links didn't affect the ranking of the first page of search results at all, though it did require that users scroll a bit more to see everything on the page. Now, with universal search, Google's algorithm decides whether or not to include Google News up top, or somewhere else among the first page of results. A search over the weekend for "Mets" brought up Google News listings on top, followed by nine other listings, including News. A search for "Tigers" brought up the Google News results as the fourth listing.
The first takeaway is that search engine optimization continues to get harder. Universal search gives Google one more way to compete with every other listing. There's something almost mythical about appearing on the first page of search results, but click patterns reliably show that clicks on search results follow a power curve distribution, where the top few listings get the most clicks, and each listing down, especially on subsequent pages, is stuck in the long tail. To tackle this challenge, marketers need to pursue a holistic approach that involves optimizing for all of Google's vertical services. With local, a starting point is Google's Local Business Center. For news, it means press release optimization. Video is a more complicated issue, as universal search aims to improve the indexing of Google Video and YouTube videos. Marketers who focus on optimizing video on their own sites will still want to redouble those efforts, especially if syndication isn't part of their strategy. Marketers should also look to the future. Google's specialized search functions span images, code, patents, scholarly journals, and blogs, to name a few examples. Marketers should optimize any asset they think Google will find of interest, keeping the other engines in mind. With Yahoo, marketers should optimize for Flickr, del.icio.us, My Web, and any of its vertical search engines. For Microsoft, marketers may well one day be optimizing around the Xbox. In other words, universal search's action item for marketers is to optimize everything.
Thanks, David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media, 360i.
Typically, marketers have one of three reactions to the universal search news. Some say they have been anticipating this since 2001, and have aligned their search engine optimization strategy along these lines for years. There are others, who have been thinking this way for a while, but haven't done anything about it. However, some marketers feel they are screwed, and this is where the holistic SEO strategy comes into play. Right now, one has to optimize around all of Google's vertical and specialized offerings, namely news, video, and local. This is how universal search works. Consider a search on Google for a newsworthy topic. Previously, Google would sometimes feature listings from Google News atop the 10 natural listings on the first page. If links from Google News didn't merit appearing up top, then that section wouldn't appear at all. The inclusion of Google News links didn't affect the ranking of the first page of search results at all, though it did require that users scroll a bit more to see everything on the page. Now, with universal search, Google's algorithm decides whether or not to include Google News up top, or somewhere else among the first page of results. A search over the weekend for "Mets" brought up Google News listings on top, followed by nine other listings, including News. A search for "Tigers" brought up the Google News results as the fourth listing.
The first takeaway is that search engine optimization continues to get harder. Universal search gives Google one more way to compete with every other listing. There's something almost mythical about appearing on the first page of search results, but click patterns reliably show that clicks on search results follow a power curve distribution, where the top few listings get the most clicks, and each listing down, especially on subsequent pages, is stuck in the long tail. To tackle this challenge, marketers need to pursue a holistic approach that involves optimizing for all of Google's vertical services. With local, a starting point is Google's Local Business Center. For news, it means press release optimization. Video is a more complicated issue, as universal search aims to improve the indexing of Google Video and YouTube videos. Marketers who focus on optimizing video on their own sites will still want to redouble those efforts, especially if syndication isn't part of their strategy. Marketers should also look to the future. Google's specialized search functions span images, code, patents, scholarly journals, and blogs, to name a few examples. Marketers should optimize any asset they think Google will find of interest, keeping the other engines in mind. With Yahoo, marketers should optimize for Flickr, del.icio.us, My Web, and any of its vertical search engines. For Microsoft, marketers may well one day be optimizing around the Xbox. In other words, universal search's action item for marketers is to optimize everything.
Thanks, David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media, 360i.
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