In recent weeks, people all around the world have been seeing their websites rank higher than ever in Google searches.
I’ve been receiving phone calls from customers I’ve built sites for over the years, telling me how finally my SEO has paid off, and that they’re popping up on the first page in Google. It’s then my job to inform them that uh, no, you’re getting your site on the first page because you’re a relentless self-Googler.
What happened? Well, without much (or enough) fanfare, Google rolled out its Personalized Search Results initiative. Now the search results you get are personalized for you based on your browsing and searching history.
Personalized Search is great for everyone. Except if you’re me, because as a part-time website builder, it denies me of one of the most important measures of success—the site’s ranking in Google. You could say it’s the end of SEO as we know it.
To test the new Google search, I Googled the term “bass”. Since I’m a bass player and an Israeli, the top results I got were: the Wikipedia entries for the instrument, the fish and the vocal range; YouTube clips for bass guitar music; the homepage for Avishai Cohen, world-class Israeli bass player; and at #6, Bass shoes and clothing (I’m on their mailing list)
You can disable Personalized Search by deleting your search history if you’re signed in, deleting the G-cookie if you’re not, or using the incognito (porn) mode.
Once disabled, the top results were: Bass Pro Shops (fishing and hunting); Bass shoes and clothing; Bass Fishing Membership and Tournament News; The Wikipedia entry for Bass guitar; Van Heusen – Bass clothing and footwear; and finally Fender bass guitars. Clearly fishier and more focused on the clothing brand, and much less relevant to me. So Kudos to Google!
So is this really the end of SEO? Bottom line is that SEO is important as ever and that Personalized Search doesn’t change the outcome of SEO, just how we measure it. We optimize sites not for the people who know us and search for us, but for those who don’t. I don’t need Google to direct me to Guitar Center for bass strings. But the next time I need bait for bass fishing, my search results page, virginal, unbiased and uneducated in the ways of all thing aquatic, will show me the results the as intended by the gods of the Internet.
Let the games continue!
Good point.
It’s not the end of SEO at all; but hopefully the end of “snake-oil SEO”. As far as I understand, SEO is about following some fairly trivial rules, but driving traffic to your site (which is really what you want), is about providing valuable, meaningful content. If you do that, in a consistent manner, you will attract the right audience to your site. Regardless of you Google rank.
I tried to Google “financial blogs”. The first page contained links to pages that linked & ranked financial blogs. Not a single link to an actual financial blog, with one exception: The last link was
Canadian Financial, Money, Investing & Debt Reduction Blogs …
Note: This page is not maintained as of April 2009. Some of the blog may not exist or are not updated anymore. Check my blogroll for the current list of.
But next time.. Search for “Bass Guitar” and you’ll be fine