This video, from Techcrunch, shows an experimental version of google which includes digg-like social search functions.
Quite a challenge for traditional SEO? It seems like a huge one to me.
Would love to hear some thoughts from anyone in SEO - and from anyone else!
It's clearly a huge step forward from google's previous efforts in social search.
The further ahead you look - the faster you go | davidpcushman AT gmail.com | These are my views and my views only.
I think this is great. I'm really buzzed by it... I'd really love to see a Google that was visibly influenced by my contacts (I can see those little green dots/lights we associate with Gmail spreading far and wide).
ReplyDeleteAs for SEO; well, another reason why this is a good because those snake oil salesmen and link buyers suffer another set back.
Those SEOs who approach the task by ensuring the human and spider have an easy and productive visit to the site have another string to their bow.
I mean; it's clearly very important to ensure the page ranking for the keywords is a good match for those keywords - that'll increase the chances of humans actually voting up the page. Whereas those black hats who hide content, etc, will loose out and may get voted down.
It also means the search usablity of the site is important. People may enter the site at any point, not just the home page, and the SEO will have have a good idea of how to tie up the usability profiles with keywords that members of that profile are actually likely to use.
Of course, it's still a case of "being in it to win it" you're only going to get voted up or down if you're ranked by the search engines. I bet URLs get voted off page #1 far more often than they are voted up from page #3.
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteI think the principle of user voting sounds really attractive for relevance but I remain sceptical about it working in practice.
Everywhere I have seen it in action you seem to end up with a small group of well intentioned participants being overwhelmed by a group of mindless f~ckwits.
Whilst services like Digg generate a lot of buzz and traffic I do not believe they effectively let the cream rise to the top.
Admitedly my definition of cream may be very different from other peoples...
Rory.
Rory, you nail it in 'my definition of cream may be very different from other people's'. Social search doesn't necessarily mean lowest common denominator dominates. It can work by selecting to only count votes for those you respect. segmented and selective democracy. Everyone can be in twitter, but I don't choose to follow everyone - for example. If I don't follow you, you have zero impact on my silo...
ReplyDeleteI understand the Twitter analogy but think it will be very difficult to apply to a concept like general web search.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding from the demo was that this was either a recommendations on or recommendations off system.
Even if it can be tailored, the metadata I carry for web search is extremely diverse & I doubt I'm going to be able to turn on or turn off sections of communities when engaging in the variety of tasks I carry out with Google.
Forever the sceptic I still believe it is a nice concept but remain to be convinced about the effectiveness of voting systems online. You tend to get examples of the worst of humanity on them and the results get polluted because the majority do not participate/understand.
I see this as a great step forward: Google is finally offering a solution out of the degradation in results that I have seen over time.
ReplyDeleteOne big issue with Google search and ranking was the influence of ads on the pageranking: the more I advertise, the more I get seen, the better ranking I get (even if it is not just that).
Now at least we can have a balance that will give a better chance to content that is not purely commercial.
Related to ads, and looking at it from the advertiser prospective, the big step forward I see is the fact that content can now be linked to people. Where it will make a big difference for advertiser is that hopefully we will see Google ads that will take into account not just the keywords, but also the profiles of people linked through comments to this content. Which is a great way to better qualify context beyond keywords, and therefore a good way to improve the quality of ad placement.
Which in turn should improve my browsing experience: I am happy with ads as long as they are relevant. So hopefully at some point stop I will no longer see ads for the iPod when I am looking at a Zune page talking about which Zune accessories are available for my Zune player.
I can't wait to see this take off...