Twenty-eight speakers, an EMCEE, and Roger MozBot are getting ready during these days to make MozCon an unforgettable learning experience.
We decided to introduce the MozCon spirit with a series of interviews, which will try to offer the best exact snapshot of the state of things in SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing.
Since July 29th, the last day of MozCon 2011, many things have changed in the Search Industry and in our profession as SEOs:
Another 10 or more points could be added, but these are the main events we have lived through this past year.
But let’s what our interviewees have to say.
Panda, Penguin, private blog networks, and SEO directories deindexations. It seems that Google, after a few years during which it seemed surrendering to the fact that Search spam could not really be won, have decided to give an answer to all those ones who were complaining about the quality of its SERPs.
Personally, even though Panda caused at first some collateral victims and Penguin somehow seems being an overly too black/white solution, I consider that these updates and the other actions against web spam at least had the positive effect of making our industry reflecting and reconsidering years of bad practices, used because they were working out well.
What are your thoughts about the hyperactivity Google showed along these last 16 months?
Annie Cushing: Although I didn’t like the lack of ethics that underpinned the embryonic stages of Google’s sting operation on blog networks this year or the free pass it gave some bigger brands on egregious Panda violations that decimated smaller sites, I think both Panda and Penguin have engendered a net positive.
Ian Lurie: I’m happy that they’re finally taking positive steps against webspam. But I’m pretty discouraged about the way they’ve gone about it, which has left huge gaps and made it very, very difficult for companies who worked with lousy SEOs to get re-included. If you have 999 spammy links pointing at your site, and you get 990 of them removed, but Google’s re-consideration team finds the other 9 in their reinclusion spot-check, you’re rejected. That leaves businesses 100% at the mercy of the linking sites. With all the computing power Google has at its disposal, I’d think they could handle re-consideration requests in a more nuanced manner.
Paddy Moogan: As a company who have always encouraged clients to not cut corners and use spammy techniques, it is somewhat satisfying to finally see Google taking more action against websites who have pushed things too far. We are seeing Google do something which up until Panda, they said they’d never do – update their algorithms knowing that some innocent websites may be hurt too. They always said they would use caution and would hold back on an update if they felt that innocent websites would be caught by accident.
Panda showed they were willing to change this stance and they knew they were going to hurt some sites that wouldn’t have been. This is a brave precedent to set, and they have carried this on with Penguin; sites have been hit which shouldn’t have been. But Google are prepared to hold this tougher stance and want to make a point.
Wil Reynolds: I’m worried. This much change at once makes it harder to isolate variables, but I am assuming that Google has gotten much better at doing this. It like 3-4 years ago you could see a change, determine its impact, and adjust. Now, with not provided, personalized search results with +1, rich snippet spam, etc, it’s hard to isolate variables, which is maybe what they want. Ultimately, it is GREAT though; this much movement continues to help Google hopefully move to a better and better set of search results.
Rand Fishkin: I’m curious to know what spurred this change on Google’s part, and whether they’ll continue to make forward strides on this front or rest on their laurels for another few years. I’m definitely happy about the moves. They show that Google’s not merely saying “don’t manipulate the link graph”; they will actually enforce their guidelines.
Richard Baxter: Google’s development has really stepped up a notch in the past year – there are so many algorithm changes and product updates happening that it feels like a full time job just keeping track. I’m all up for change; the move towards filtering for *really* obvious link spam (and handing out penalties) has been interesting to watch. I do feel bad for the small companies who are fast going out of business because they’ve been working with very low quality SEO solutions. Anyone who knew anything about SEO stopped depending on link directories and article distribution a long time ago. So more often than not, Penguin has most impacted the ignorant, the little guys who just left SEO to their $600 a month agency.
Jonathon Colman: Personally, I love it. All of Google’s iterations help keep SEOs on their toes and make our work all the more interesting. And it’s clear that Google is working hard to close up all the obvious shortcuts and loopholes that we’ve been using as crutches for all these years instead of – you know – actually creating really amazing content and user experiences. So if a series of hard-core algo updates from Google is what it takes for marketers to start paying attention to their users’ needs and their goals rather than just driving traffic at any cost, then I’m all for it.
Peter Meyers: I’m glad Google woke up, but they’re like a bear who hibernated for two years and then suddenly started mauling people to make up for lost time. I strongly suspect that the collateral damage from Penguin is much greater than they originally predicted. It was a punishment, plain and simple, without regard for search quality (they’ve said as much), but the consequences were unpredictable. Since then, they’ve been making bigger changes faster than usual, and the side effects are getting worse. I think they’re trying to do too much, too fast.
Aleyda Solis: Google is reasonably trying to get rid of the significant amount of spam it has in its search results. But even if the latest updates have been much more frequent and faster than before, with many iterations, targeting the “fundamental” aspects of its algorithm — strengthening the criteria that is taken into consideration to assess basic factors of content and links — what they have shown is:
A lack of effectiveness: With inconsistencies causing that some of the spam Google was targeting with the updates wasn’t filtered out from its results, but some of the sites showing useful information were. This situation has additionally generated poorer results to users.
For example, I’ve seen sites being affected and then recovered from Panda without changing anything; a crazy amount of not-so-relevant sites from Latin America ranking in Spain; sites being filtered out because of a bad site architecture without a “spammy” intend behind them; and others that continue pushing the limits with no consequence thanks to their authority.
Google’s inability to effectively identify relevant, quality information that is popular thanks to real endorsement with the factors it has been using up to now. Because of this, it’s clear that Google needs to keep updating and enhancing these “traditional factors” but is also increasingly important that Google builds alternative mechanisms to assess information.
AJ Kohn: I see this as a natural reaction to the acceleration of digital content. We’ve got more people online and more and easier ways to produce content and much of it just isn’t that good.
Outside of this trend, I think Google realized two things. First, that users weren’t best served by simply matching queries with relevant content. Instead, the content had to be relevant and valuable. I appreciate what Google is trying to do with Panda, but I still don’t like that it’s domain based. It strikes me as very un-Googly.
The second thing they realized was that quietly neutralizing link graph manipulation wasn’t going to cut it. Because it took too long for Google to neutralize manipulation (if they found it), and in the interim, it encouraged those who might not have thought to go down that road to ‘resort’ to these tactics.
In short, many believed that you simply had to buy links to keep up with your competition. While this isn’t something I subscribed to, I know many felt this way, and the proof was, unfortunately, right there in the search results. That stuff was working.
So Penguin removes a lot of link manipulation from the landscape, but also serves to shut off the demand for these types of tactics. Sites are far more wary to engage in this behavior and risk a more catastrophic traffic loss.
I think Google still has a ways to go though, and I see some real problems with SERP domain diversity in the last three months.
Rhea Drysdale: Google’s updates do not feel hyperactive to me, just a product of the times and more transparent. Google isn’t more transparent in the specifics of updates, but more visible in blog posts, Google Webmaster Central correspondence, Matt’s videos, forum responses, Amit’s appearances, etc.
Do I think Google is giving up much? No. But, I do think they’re intentionally speaking up about search quality more than ever before. There is a lot to talk about–the speed by which Google can crawl and process data has improved, so the rate of updates has increased as well. Without being on the inside, I have to assume that it’s easier to test algorithmic changes and return sound results today than it was five years ago. That means there’s more for us to track as SEOs, but likewise, when an update hits we see things simmer down faster than before and we’re getting feedback on what happened. This just speaks to the speed with which everything is moving, and I think it’s great for job security.
Cyrus Shepard: As someone who loves the Internet first and is an SEO second, I champion any attempt to improve search results and reduce spam. To this end, I think the improvements by the Webspam team have been mostly positive, with the exception of asking Webmasters to jump through hoops to remove bad links and possible shift in plausible effectiveness of negative SEO.
Now, if only the rest of Google would only work as hard as the Webspam team to improve results by reducing paid results and links to Google properties, then the Internet would really improve!
Mike King: I suppose I have a different perspective than most thought leaders as iAcquire was directly affected by Google’s new aggressive stance, but I think it’s good.
Wil Reynolds made some great points in his post about how Google makes liars out of all of us, and it’s good to see them finally stepping up to the plate to remedy some of the glaring issues. I don’t think we’ve seen the worst/best of it yet though. There is still much work to be done, and I’m happy that content marketing has at least become trendy even though I’m not so sure too many people are able to sell it just yet.
When I am asked about the Penguin update, I usually answer that it is the most bitter confirmation that links still matter a lot, and that the Link Graph is far from being dismissed as others, maybe fascinated and dazzled by the effects that Social Graph and Author Rank may have on rankings, started preaching. I do not deny the correlation Social Media, for instance, may have on rankings, but I think that we are still at the beginning of what can be the evolution of a new Google based over Link Graph, Social Graph, and Author Rank.
What is your opinion about the current importance of backlinks and the evolution of Google that we are seeing?
Annie Cushing: I think that links will always matter; what’s changing is how Google evaluates them. I think, in the end, social signals will continue to provide valuable insights into that evaluation.
Aleyda Solis: Links still matter a lot despite of other signals, such as social-related factors which importance is still too low in comparison to links. Google has relied in links up to now to identify popularity and cannot simply forget about them from one day to another.
Nonetheless, Google also knows links can be easily manipulated and is having a hard time effectively assessing them lately so it’s increasingly important that Google builds alternative mechanisms to identify the “real” popularity of information, that shouldn’t be absolute, but relative to each user.
This is the idea with the Knowledge Graph, Schema, Author Rank, and Google+, and we’ve just started to see the real shift.
AJ Kohn: Links are (and will be) a huge part of how Google understands trust and authority. The link graph had gotten rickety, in large part because the motivation to link was for SEO benefit. By measuring the link graph, Google ultimately changed it.
What I think we’re seeing now is a way for Google to understand whether that link is ‘organic’ or ‘inorganic.’ They’re really only interested in the organic link graph. Better identification methods, the addition of social signals, and, down the road, authorship can all help to mend and improve the link graph, not get rid of it.
Rhea Drysdale: Links are still incredibly important, we just have more precautions to take and patterns to avoid. It’s further proof that we need to diversify link building efforts, focus on building brands (not rankings), and become less reliant on Google for traffic.
When it comes to the evolution of Google, I think we should be less worried about the traditional SERPs and more concerned with personalization. That’s where we’re seeing Author Rank and the Social Graph have the strongest effect.
When every search returns personalized results, we have to stop clinging to old metrics and reporting methods and develop a new standard for success.
Cyrus Shepard: Instead of links, social metrics, and author rank, we might instead look at the situation in terms of popularity, relevance, and authority – 3 metrics which the search engines will continue to use, no matter what form they take.
Popularity used to mean links solely; now it means a mixture of other signals which may be more natural. Google’s evolution beyond links is forcing SEOs to work more like true marketers across all online channels. It’s harder now to fake popularity, relevance, and authority – and that’s a good thing.
Mike King: Well, first I see Author Rank and the Social Graph as the same thing. Author Rank is basically a way to apply authority to the Social Graph much like PageRank is a way to apply authority to the Link Graph. In any event, links will never be obsolete simply because no one is going to tweet about “diarrhea medicine” or any other number of topics that pages will continue to need to be ranked for. Social signals may not be so powerful right now, but as Google gets better at connecting people to their content, you will definitely see a sliding scale of link value being passed based on how authoritative their data model appears for a given topic across Google’s ecosystem.
What seems sure is that now, on the one hand, user experience and, on the other, user involvement have become a key to the success of a site from an SEO point of view too, even more than just few years ago. This cannot but remind me how Marketing has been the forgotten facet of the SEO disciplines.
Do you think is it still – and maybe unconsciously – undervalued by the SEO community? How much an SEO should be a “real” marketer?
Annie Cushing: I think that’s probably one of the greatest outcomes of some of the changes in the past couple years. Having come from an editorial background, content was always king and the bedrock of marketing. It was disheartening at times to see some of the slimy practices that caused websites to rank. I’m glad to see that scale tip in a positive direction.
Ian Lurie: The SEO community as a whole, and the folks who hire them, focus on stuff that doesn’t require site changes. That’s because getting site changes done is so damned hard. So link building and social media become the more expedient avenues. I don’t think the SEO community deliberately ignores site quality and/or on-site SEO. I think they’re forced to because it’s so hard to do anything else.
Wil Reynolds: Oooh, you are hitting on another one of my themes: its more important than ever to be a real marketer. I started hiring SEOs in 2004, after years of doing it in an agency and an in-house environment. Even back in 2004, I hired marketers not developer/programmer types for SEO. I made the bet back in 2004 that marketers would win. This is not to say that devs don’t have a place in SEO; I am not saying that at all. But every dev I interviewed looked at SEO as a scale problem, oh I need links, how can I scale. It’s the way you are trained to think. So we hired our first dev in 2008, but it was to build tools to make the marketers more efficient so they could spend more time solving content problems, building links of real value, etc.
Marketers, since before search engines existed, thought about things like this:
- How do I create content people will want to share?
- How do I connect with my audience?
- How do I tell a story people can relate to?
If you met our developer Chris Le, you can watch him geek out on tech, but he’s great at bringing it back to marketing, adding value, connecting with the SEO team at SEER (his audience).
Just because some trick worked and scaled to create wins on Google 3-4 years ago, we knew that eventually marketing would trump scale. I’m just glad to see that time coming!
Rand Fishkin: Absolutely. SEOs, because of the technical and often very tactical focus our practice involves, have often ignored the principles of truly great marketing. Creativity, user experience, branding, and many more have fallen to the almighty practices of keyword optimization and link acquisition. I’ve been plenty guilty of this myself, and it’s been a frustrating, but eventually gratifying and educational experience to see what it takes to build a real brand and a successful company on the web.
Richard Baxter: SEOs should be (are) real marketers. Multi-channel, multi-discipline, technology savvy marketers who know where their audience is and how to reach them. I’d say the key point is that as a marketer, an SEO’s goals extend beyond classic marketing, i.e “I need to grow my links to compete for this term”, but that the SEO is using classic marketing techniques to achieve those goals.
Jonathon Colman: Absolutely. SEOs should challenge themselves with the notion that they are not just traffic drivers, but also information architects and user experience professionals. But then we must also rise to the challenge of building breakthrough experiences for our users.
This is easier said than done; most SEOs – self included! – only scratch at the surface of these complex disciplines. So just as we challenge ourselves to learn web development and design, we should also challenge ourselves with structuring information and metadata, building taxonomies for content and products, conducting user research and testing (both online and in-person), developing user profiles and detailed personas, and so on. Folks like Vanessa Fox and Michael King already know this and have been doing it for a while.
Unfortunately, mixing SEO with user experience is sometimes a controversial idea, especially in organizations where domain experts are territorial about their disciplines rather than incentivized to work together for the benefit of the customer. IA/UX professionals can see the intrusion of SEOs/inbound marketers to their areas of practice as being a threat. And nothing riles an SEO so much as being accused of being a spammer who focuses on robots over people. So our goal will be to dispel these myths in order win them over with our understanding of users’ intent, our strong business cases, and our fluency in analyzing data.
Peter Meyers:Look at the progression from on-page to links to social – it’s a progression that naturally favors brands and offline marketing. When SEO was strictly an on-page endeavor, anyone could create the right formula and succeed. Now, a powerful company offline could screw just about everything up on-page and still attract links and social mentions. I know it frustrates people, but there’s a certain logic to it; the online world is naturally going to reflect the offline world. Arguably, it should. Search is a representation of the world, with all of the faults and influences of that world.
Aleyda Solis: SEO is online marketing. An SEO is an online marketer. If you haven’t been aligning your SEO strategy along your online marketing one, then you’ve been underusing SEO.
If you haven’t been taking into consideration your site’s consumers or users and their experience in your SEO process then you haven’t been implementing a real SEO process but just doing independent optimization activities.
I think that you cannot understand SEO without taking users into consideration, since your main goal as an SEO is to attract those users through search engines’ organic results to generate conversions by providing what they’re looking with your site.
AJ Kohn: I was a marketer before I began in SEO and think that experience and perspective helps me. Then again, I don’t view SEO as a narrow industry. My brand of SEO includes user experience, conversion rate optimization, product refinement, market and audience definition, information architecture, business intelligence, and more.
Sometimes SEO isn’t the best way to allocate your resources or accomplish your goals. A good SEO should tell a client just that.
Rhea Drysdale: It depends on the SEO. I’m big proponent of not just building links, but understanding the business strategy behind everything we do for a client. Without the ability to inform enterprise-level marketing and even basic business decisions, I think we make our jobs more difficult as SEOs.
Cyrus Shepard: There’s value in being a pure technical-minded SEO, but at a certain level you have to find your inner Don Draper. Ideas can be more powerful than spreadsheets.
Mike King: I wholeheartedly agree that SEOs need to know more about marketing. SEOs are Marketing Technologists; we exist very much at that intersection of marketing and technology so if you don’t know at least the basics of both sides, you’re definitely operating at a loss. For example, I talk about personas a lot which seems to have brought valuable insights, but for people that have studied marketing that’s Market Segmentation 101. The very fact that these basics are not a prerequisite is part of why we don’t get the traction we deserve amongst C-level marketing executives. A lot of SEOs just don’t know how to speak their language.:
The previous question pushes me asking you about the evolution toward very specialized SEO professional figures: Local Search, Video & Image Search, SEOcial, Technical SEO, Link Building… Do you agree with me that this same specialization is making the old classic figure of SEO Consultant/Head of SEO even more important in any businesses and or agency?
Annie Cushing: The fact that marketers are becoming more and more specialized is a sign the industry is maturing. I place greater value on people in the industry I can trust to rock their specialty. I always want to stay relevant and informed in all things SEO, analytics, and social media, but specializing in a particular area of the industry adds shelf life to a consultant or agency’s portfolio, in my opinion.
Ian Lurie: Definitely, as is an SEO’s cross-training as a marketer. Link building now means marketing. Panda-related SEO means marketing + tech. You have to be ready to wear a lot of hats if you’re going to lead an effective SEO team.
Wil Reynolds: Once again, you are asking all the right questions here. So SEER used to be very SEO consultant centric, with each consultant having a specialty. Now we are still that way but for certain areas, like content and tech, we are starting to move away from that model. It doesn’t build expertise. I’m strong at link building and content generation, but average at technical SEO and editing copy. So for instance, wouldn’t it make sense for me to focus on my strengths and find others who love technical SEO and copywriting to help round out the BEST solution?
Now I will say this, we needed to get our SEO team to about 25-30 SEOs for me to realize this. Early on its impossible to try to get specialists in everything because you are just resource constrained, but now that we are big enough, its our goal to take certain parts of SEO and start to compartmentalize them. It also helps the people on those teams to have better consistency across the company. If you have two people doing all tech audits or all outreach management, then you end up with a consistency that a checklist can’t always provide as you get larger. A job I see on the horizon is SEO project manager, which I can see more and more clients needing an in house person who gets the big picture and plays traffic cop between the social, seo, affiliate, email channels, etc. As the specialists are doing the deep dives, but very often they go so deep that they don’t respect the other channels like they should meaning opportunities for synergies are missed. How often do SEO’s launch infographics or contests and NOT include those things in the email list? Or even worse tell their own internal teams about the content piece they may want to share.
Rand Fishkin: Definitely. The specialized knowledge and constant changes/updates in these categories require a professional who can store, retrieve, and apply a massive amount of unique information about how these channels operate. Google’s ongoing complexity and the broadening of the SEO field to involve other mediums and tactics (content, social, UX, etc) are big contributors to the job security of SEOs.
Richard Baxter: You need a head of SEO, an all-rounder who understands all facets of an SEO campaign and the channels that campaign should be delivered via. Most senior SEOs I know are extremely well-versed in this way. More and more though, we need specialists in our teams. I have someone to turn to with a video SEO question, a Facebook question, a Google Shopping question, etc. This just makes sense.
Jonathon Colman: I’m a “Big Tent” practitioner, meaning that I’m happy to welcome and work with anyone who’s willing to support findability and discoverability, no matter who ends up getting the credit for it. I figure that when one of us makes an optimization that succeeds in helping users while growing the business, then we all win.
After all, the “killer app” for most SEOs isn’t their title in the organization; it’s their ability to keep learning and pivoting to where their users are – and where the search engines are going to be.
Aleyda Solis: Indeed. Thanks to the multidisciplinary nature of SEO (content development, technical optimization, link building, etc.) and the verticalization of search (local, video, image, news, etc.), the SEO role is becoming more and more specialized.
This specialization also makes more fundamental the role of an SEO Manager / Head / Leader who has an integral vision of all of these activities and that can lead specialized SEOs from a strategy perspective and coordinate their work.
AJ Khon: If it’s a large enterprise then yes, I think having an SEO generalist who knows how to assess the quality of all the various SEO specialists is critical. More so to ensure that the left hand knows what the right is doing.
Rhea Drysdale: It depends on the organization. In a company where search drives a substantial percent of the businesses’ traffic and conversions, yes, there should be a dedicated SEO. In organizations with less dependence on SEO, this can be managed fairly well by a more traditional Director of Marketing or Digital Manager who works with an outside SEO consultant to manage this channel, as they probably do with other channels like paid advertising, email marketing, etc.
Cyrus Shepard: I realized a couple years ago I could no longer be good at every aspect of SEO. I rely on the help of specialist at every turn. Doing so hasn’t hurt my career one bit.
Mike King: I personally think overspecialization is a weakness just like being a jack of all trades. For example, at one of my former agencies, we had a team that specialized in optimizing Yahoo’s feeds and then Yahoo killed the feeds; some of those guys had to go to paid search or do something else presumably because feeds was all they did in organic.
Granted things like local search are becoming incredibly nuanced, and I wouldn’t want to come up against a David Mihm or a Darren Shaw in the SERPs; but I still feel as though every SEO should know enough to be able to adapt to that if need be. At the end of the day, nothing we do is that hard; you just have to have the patience to do your research and test things out.
Ian Lurie: I actually don’t like the move towards specialization. SEO is a marketing specialty. Further sub-dividing it doesn’t serve anyone well – you end up with folks who are so hyper-specialized, they can’t do any good. For example: Say I want to improve local rankings for a client. Yes, knowing local SEO is important. But I also need to understand link building, usability/marketing (to get reviews), and technology (to add markup). There are exceptions, of course. But I see a lot of folks specializing because it’s easier, not because it makes them more effective marketers. That’s bad.
The specialization of SEO is obviously a consequence of the “verticals” explosion and the vitality Google has shown also in fields other than SEOs (Social, PPC…). Many professionals complain the fact that old organic searches are somehow a species under menace of extinction.
What is your take about this topic? And what is your take about other polemic decisions done by Google, as the “not provided”, or the paid inclusions in Products or, last but not least, Google hiding the social connection pages?
Rand Fishkin: I see no reason to complain about Google or Bing changing the SERPs to include more verticals, and I’d think, as SEOs, we should be thankful they continue to make the practice challenging (job security!). However, on the decisions around “not provided,” paid inclusion in product search, and hiding social connections, I’m, quite frankly, infuriated. Those moves suggest Google is abandoning its core values. Microsoft must be cheering, and I hope and assume many Googlers are thinking about new jobs. Going against values the company regularly espouses – transparency, serving the web, doing no evil – will bring about terrible things for Google, the web, and its users.
Richard Baxter: That’s two questions!
Yeah – if you’re an SEO, then your main aim is to drive traffic from any or all channels provided to you, not just organic.
As for (not provided) here’s how that feels…. [leaves blank answer]
Jonathon Colman: I’m saddened by Google’s draconian and hypocritical decisions to both hide referring organic keywords as well as reduce the real estate that organic results use in the SERPs versus paid/sponsored ads. Their expressed rationale of acting in the interest of user privacy doesn’t hold up to even the slightest amount of scrutiny and – especially for an information-driven company – they should be embarrassed and chastened by their increasingly pitiful attempts at explanation. A misbehaving child would be more honest and direct, which is all I can really ask for from Google.
Which is why I’m actually pleased by their emerging tact of stating that they’re a business and that they need to compete with other businesses that are encroaching on their space. I think this makes all of their actions far more understandable and predictable, from moving Google Product Search from a free model to PLAs to cleaning up SERPs with Panda/Penguin so that publishers have incentive to either create higher-quality user experiences… or to open up their wallets for paid advertising.
So let me be clear: I don’t have a problem with Google earning money for providing great experiences (which they absolutely do, IMHO), and I certainly don’t expect them to be impartial or unchanging; no one can be held to that unattainable standard. But I do appreciate it when they’re straight with us and clearly let us know what works, what doesn’t, and what their expectations are. The awesome updates and iterations I’ve seen over the past few years in Webmaster Tools signals to me that Google’s trying really hard to do exactly that.
Aleyda Solis: I understand vertical explosion as a consequence coming from the user need of more specialized results in specific formats with some particular characteristics and from the ability of search engines (not only Google) to identify and assess this information in order to provide a relevant result that fulfills this need.
Another thing is what Google does with its vertical results, social presence with Google+, and any of its products, giving them more visibility in its results and try to keep users in its properties in order to increase monetization.
The same happens with PPC ads, that have been gaining more visibility in Google’s results pages. Google also only provides keyword referral data for AdWords traffic but eliminates it from organic visits arguing privacy concerns.
How far can Google go with these controversial decisions? It will depend on:
- Users satisfaction – How Google’s results fulfill users need of information.
- Competition – The ability of an existing or new player in the search market to provide a qualitatively superior search experience and results than Google.
If users are not satisfied with Google’s search results and a real competitor that provides a substantial enhancement to what Google is already giving appears, then Google won’t have the flexibility to make these controversial decisions as it has now.
AJ Kohn: I like search because it is always changing. I might question what Google is doing or react emotionally when a client site suffers at something like Panda, but cooler heads prevail and then it’s a puzzle to solve. I like puzzles.
Specifically, I thought ‘not provided’ was a non-issue for the most part and may have actually helped raise the bar on keyword research and analysis. Mind you, if we get to 60% ‘not provided,’ I may think different.
Paid inclusion in Google Shopping is another non-issue for me. Maybe it’s my marketing background, but I never really understood why they didn’t charge in the first place. Google still doesn’t understand retail nearly as well as it should, but I think they’re finally starting to figure some things out.
And the social connection page is another example of what I see as SEO entitlement. It was never a service that Google promoted to any great extent, and I don’t think there was any expectation that it was a permanent repository that you could use.
They exposed the social public web to you. That was cool even though it showed that Google was doing many of the same things that got Rapleaf in trouble. Now it’s gone. So be it. Move on.
Cyrus Shepard: In the old days, you wanted to rank #1 for “shoes.” Today, these shifts have caused us to focus more on quality traffic from a variety of sources than individual rankings, no matter the source. Multi-touch attribution reporting in GA is a perfect example of this. SEO is becoming much more holistic.
Mike King: I think vertical specialization is very important especially in lieu of content marketing. How can you truly be awesome at creating content in a space that you don’t understand? I think market research is key. I believe in that so much that at iAcquire I grabbed a guy that spent 7 years doing market research for Nielsen. As far as what Google is doing… ‘Not provided’ is maddening. Paid inclusion is hypocrisy. Hiding social connections is corny, but that is public data anyway; if you really want that, you can scrape the web yourself for it. Hint hint.
On the contrary, Bing seems strongly decided in becoming the SEO-friendly search engine, apart from potentially being the real social search engine thanks to its contracts with Facebook and Twitter. Do you believe Bing will really be able to have a stronger appeal on the public, professional and not, and become a real serious competitor for Google?
Annie Cushing: People are creatures of habit. To break their habit of Google, there will have to be a cataclysm of some sort that sends the masses running. I think people have made one thing really clear to Google: we want to still search with you, but we don’t want to rely on you for social.
Ian Lurie: Bing is saddled with a huge, non-search-dedicated company behind it. They have brilliant people over there, but I don’t see how they ever get out from under Microsoft’s cultural influence. And if they don’t do that, they can’t compete.
Wil Reynolds: In a word. No. But if Google continues to launch new businesses (glasses, tablets, home music devices) they just might take their eye off the ball long enough for an upstart to come along.
Rand Fishkin: I generally agree with Danny Sullivan, who noted that until and unless Google makes major missteps that cost it public trust and belief, they will continue to be the monopoly in the field. Bing has got some great features, and I’ve actually switched to make them my default engine recently (after being so disappointed in Google’s abandonment of their own core values), but slightly better isn’t enough to make people switch.
Jonathon Colman: I sure as hell want them to be a strong competitor to Google so that both search engines continually challenge each other and get better and better at meetings users’ needs. And I know the folks at Bing are working hard at innovating and testing so that they can poke at Google’s weak points. I love a lot of the things they’ve been first to market with that provide incremental value for their users while acting as a wake-up call for Google.
That said, while I love that Bing’s actively reaching out to the SEO community, that’s not likely to help them build market share, which is what SEOs really need them to do. Bing’s challenge is to make use of all of Microsoft’s expertise and resources so that they can skate to where the puck is going to be in 2-3 years from now, not to where the puck is today. That’s what’s ultimately going to build sustainable awareness and traffic.
Peter Meyers: I admire what the Bing team is trying to do, and I think they’re sincere, but they also have a vested interest in becoming SEO-friendly to demonstrate how different they are from Google. While I see good things from the Bing team and like Duane and his team, I’m not that optimistic about the larger Microsoft culture. Look at what Google spends on search vs. what Microsoft spends – it’s clear which company treats the industry as a top priority. Google has to compete in the social space to survive. Microsoft could give up search completely and still make a fortune.
Aleyda Solis: It’s great that Bing provides SEOs with the information and features that Google doesn’t. Unfortunately, most of users don’t search with Bing, and we need to work with the search engine that is used by our target audience and not the one that is more SEO-friendly.
If Bing wants to become a real competitor for Google, then it will need to stop playing with the rules that have been set by Google since it started and develop something unique that can provide a different search experience and qualitative better results to users that will make them realize they need to shift their search behaviour and start using Bing instead.
Since searching the Web with Google is now a rooted activity for users, I believe the search paradigm will need to shift so people are opened to start using something else. For me, it’s not only a matter to start showing social related results, for example, but to change the way search is conducted.
Honestly, despite of Bing’s computational power, it hasn’t shown a real innovation capacity up to now, and since Microsoft is not very well known by this neither, I think that a startup with a new way to assess and provide information to users can have a better chance to become a real competitor for Google.
AJ Kohn: No. I don’t think Bing has a chance to make a dent in the search landscape. The strategy to woo SEOs who will, supposedly, invest more time and effort in optimizing sites for Bing is interesting. Does the SEO industry really have that much clout? I don’t think so. And the social efforts are just too little too late. In addition, they don’t own that data, which makes it incredibly hard to build on reliably.
Rhea Drysdale: Bing is doing a fantastic job of connecting with Webmasters. The new webmaster toolset is great. Their transparency is great. Their public ambassadors are great. Their social connections are great. Unfortunately…
I still haven’t made the switch to Bing, which may be anecdotal, but I also haven’t seen Bing make up a significant percent of organic traffic for our client’s traffic. I would love it if Bing sent our sites more traffic, because it converts so well, but for the last decade, that hasn’t happened even with Bing’s big budget product placement.
Cyrus Shepard: I’ve always thought the future of Bing rested on a good partnership with Facebook and hoping Google screws up.
Mike King: No. Google has too much mindshare. People don’t “search the web for you”; they “Google you.” Don’t get me wrong, Bing has some awesome features, but I don’t think that’s realistic at least in the short term.
Google+ (and Plus One button). What do you think about it one year after its launch. Still thinking, as many did at last MozCon, it is a “third sock,” or do you see it as something which will be able to really influence the SEO discipline?
Annie Cushing: Unless it finds an itch no other social network has been able to scratch, I just don’t see it taking off. It succeeded in making me more discontent with Facebook, so I’ll give it that. But it didn’t make me discontent enough to leave and go hang out with marketers.
Ian Lurie: Google Plus has some nifty features, but it’s not attracting consumers. Until it does, it remains largely irrelevant to everyone except Google.
Paddy Moogan: Like it or not, I think it is here to stay. Google have put far too much resource into Google+ to let it fail. They are still way behind Twitter and Facebook, and the general public do not seem to be embracing Google+ in the way that Google would like us to believe. There is a big difference between having an account and being active like you are on Twitter or Facebook.
Either way, SEOs should at least be preparing for Google+ to become more integrated with search and a bedrock of many Google products.
Wil Reynolds: Ignore it at your own peril. I am running tests now on doing a search, adding a company to my circles, and then doing the search again, and am seeing major rankings movements. Getting people to add you to circles (assuming you are really engaging in your social channels) is having an impact right now, and I am seeing it. Hope to have time to launch the research soon.
Rand Fishkin: I’ve continued to find Google+ an interesting place for deeper discussions and a good hybrid between Twitter and Facebook. The +1 button still feels underutilized and underwhelming, but if it reaches critical mass, could get more usage in places that matter.
As far as influencing SEO, Google+ already does that in spades. I think a lot of marketers are being unwise to ignore what is already a hugely powerful channel, particularly when combined with AuthorRank and the practice of building a social community.
Richard Baxter: I think Google+ is a clear influencer on SEO. Unfortunately, there’s a disconnect. Google+ just feels like it’s a lonelier place, with fewer users (at least, fewer ordinary users) – and while +1’s have a clear benefit to the end goal, being a success on G+ is often an arduous task.
Jonathon Colman: It’s already influencing our work in a big way. For example, look at all of the focus on consolidating authority on people (authors) instead of keywords. Frankly, I think that’s excellent and long overdue. Real humans aren’t experts on keywords; they’re experts on conceptual areas, and they often express this expertise in writing. So incentivizing these experts to create valuable content experiences while structuring their authorship/ownership is helpful to Google and users. It’s a win for users because they have a means by which to trust content authors/publishers, and it’s a win for Google because they have all of these experts and rich content in Google Plus.
Peter Meyers: I think Kristy’s “third sock” metaphor is still incredibly apt. Google+ has some interesting features, and I want to like it. But even being in the industry, I barely remember to check in once a week. My friends and family are on Facebook, and my industry associates are on Twitter. I’m not saying that will never change, but even with G+ on my toolbar all day in Gmail (which I use religiously), I still don’t care most days. There’s nothing compelling yet, IMO.
Aleyda Solis: Google+ and the Plus One button have already a visible effect in Google’s results with “Search Plus Your World,” and this is only the beginning.
Although is true that Google+ hasn’t reached yet the massiveness of users, it’s something that in one way or another I expect to happen due to the way Google is pushing its use, since it’s clear that it plays an important role in the system Google is building in order to gain additional control and ranking mechanisms.
I’ve also seen the Plus One button to be included in far more sites than I had expected at the beginning, which is another challenge in this case.
So after what we have seen up to now, I would not consider Google+ as a third sock or an attempt to create a social network, but the identification platform Google needs to enhance its search results.
AJ Kohn: I guess I’m a power user on Google+. Even if I wasn’t I think Danny Sullivan said it best. “If you care about search, you have to care about Google+.”
When you look at the Google+ Activity API, look at the Activity Streams framework, and think about the acquisitions Google has made in terms of understanding engagement, it seems clear that this is part of a long-term strategy to deal with the explosion of digital content.
Google+ is about gathering additional data than they can trust to make search better. And if during that process, they break Facebook’s stranglehold on attention, well, all the better.
So, yes, Google+ works if you work it. Like a lot of things, what you put into it is what you’ll get out of it.
Rhea Drysdale: Google+ is difficult. It’s not a network I put enough love into, but I will preach the importance of it to anyone listening. When Google puts that much effort into something, it’s worth taking advantage of. We see Google+ affecting personalized SERPs a ton, and for reputation management, it’s a huge resource.
Cyrus Shepard: Google is smartly forcing us to use G+ whether we want to or not. Local business are now integrated with Google+ and links to authorship and business profiles dominate the SERPs.
We mistakenly keep judging G+ as a social tool, but it is much more finely integrated as a search information supplement.
Mike King: Google+ will definitely influence SEO, and Google is going to continue to force it down our throat; so if they keep forcing us to use it vis a vis Google+ Local, it will definitely have a large impact.
Author Rank. I consider it is surely going to be one of the fundamental elements of Google in the future, but I still doubt about its real influence as a factor in the ranking pot. What are your reflections about Author Rank, and have you seen a real attention in businesses about its implementation?
Annie Cushing: I’ve only really seen marketers and publishers rock it. I seriously doubt most business owners have any idea what it is, nor do they care.
Ian Lurie: I’d have to see more application of it, and more clarity from Google around its use, before I said anything about its SEO influence. Right now it’s one more partially-implemented mystery factor. What is “Better quality content”? I asked a Google Rep at SMX Toronto about a tag issue – my rel=author tagged content wasn’t being attributed to me – and he had no answer. That doesn’t inspire confidence.
Rand Fishkin: Businesses and sites that embrace it and properly apply the strategy of content marketing are going to be in a good place with Google and with broader inbound marketing efforts for some time to come. But, Author Rank alone isn’t particularly useful unless you’re making serious content and social investments in addition to classic SEO.
Richard Baxter: Every client we pitch and existing site we work on revolves around core authorship strategy. We insist our clients have, at the very least, a meaningful content strategy. More brands need to think of themselves as publishers – establishing them as experts in their field, giving and adding value in support of their core propostion. This, in my world is critical to establishing trust and a serious brand.
Peter Meyers: I think AuthorRank is in that dangerous phase where only SEOs really know how to set up attribution properly, and we’re exploiting it before regular businesses even know it exists. If that goes too far, Google will have to dial it down. I think the idea of the social graph and personal authority is critically important going forward. I suspect, though, that Google went out to strong on some social factors and will dial it back in the short-term.
Aleyda Solis: Author Rank in theory can be a fantastic way to provide the additional mechanism Google needs to assess targeted or relative popularity / authority to use along the link graph.
The real challenge for the Author Rank is the inclusion of the authorship markup and its verification process:
- Get users to create a Google+ profile, although this is already being pushed by Google and they will end-up, one way or another, getting users registration.
- Get developers, site owners, and authors to implement the authorship markup on their sites. (Although, this can be accelerated by the implementation of other Schema markup and the visibility that can be obtained through rich snippets.)
Nonetheless, besides the most popular sites I haven’t seen at the moment a huge number of businesses to implement this already, mainly due I think because of its complexity, lack of interest in Google+ profiles, and even some privacy issues. So I think we will need to wait a bit more for this to gain strength and reach the critical mass it needs.
AJ Kohn: On launch, Authorship was framed as a two-stage process. The first was to highlight authors in search results, and the second was to use it to help rank search results. Google has certainly done the former, and I’ve had clients implement authorship with great results.
Google hasn’t yet implemented a true Author Rank signal. But I think they’re working on it and want it to work. You can wait for it to show up and get blindsided, or you can future proof your efforts and start doing what’s necessary and be prepared.
Rhea Drysdale: Search marketers are doing our best to prioritize authorship markup and claimed accounts across all of our and client’s properties. We see the value. Unfortunately, it is difficult to quantify which makes it difficult for businesses to work into their dev schedule.
Regardless, more and more implementations are happening, and I think it’s changing CTR in the SERPs for the better. I’m sure that with Google recognizing the value of Author Rank; it will simply grow in importance over time.
Cyrus Shepard: I’ve seen no evidence that author rank influences rankings at this time, but it seems like it might play a small role in the future.
Mike King: I honestly haven’t been paying too much attention to how businesses have implemented it. I mostly see it used as a novelty by SEOs and then by a lot of blogs such as Mashable. I haven’t seen examples of a brand really getting behind it yet, but I definitely see it having bigger implications as it does get adopted.
Somehow similar to the previous answers, it is this one: Schema.org and Knowledge Graph. Should we say “adios” to Google as a search engine and think of it as an answering engine?
Annie Cushing: I don’t think it’s that simplistic. I see it kind of like explaining sex to your kids: Little questions get little answers; big questions get big answers. There are times I just have a little question, and I’m quite happy when the answer is right there for me. But if I have a bigger question or the little answer I find in the Knowledge Graph spawns more questions, I’ll click through.
Ian Lurie: Not unless consumers do. Which they haven’t yet.
Paddy Moogan: I have no doubt that Google want to become an answers engine and want to keep you on Google properties for as long as possible. However, there is a line that they can’t cross when it comes to users. Users have flocked to Google because of the quality and depth of their organic search results; if Google compromise this by trying to hard to answer everything, I feel they may drive users away. However, there is little alternative out there right now, so Google can afford to push this line and take risks with testing new features because no one is really challenging them.
Wil Reynolds: Depends on the query. If you used to get traffic from band names, actors, queries around what date is XXX Holiday, flight related keywords (with Google’s integration of ITA), I’d be careful, as the answers to the right are going to be there on desktop and inline on mobile for certain queries.
Rand Fishkin: Probably not yet. The growth of Google’s search volume and the ever-growing number of searchers still far outweighs the queries where Google’s put “instant answers” ahead of external results. I also see only a few instances (concerning, but still small) where truly valuable clicks are being lost to Google’s own answers. More often than not, these lost clicks are exclusively informational and won’t cost much in branding or transaction value.
Richard Baxter: No. More of an engine able to get the right result into users without necessarily sending the click to an organic result. Impressive and scary at the same time.
Jonathon Colman: Ha, I still think that Google’s going to continue being both a floor wax and a dessert topping for some time. But it’s clear that having a semantic, meaningful understanding of language (Schema.org) is essential to its growth and future direction – if only because it’s essential for users! – and that linked data (Knowledge Graph) is just a first step down the road to connecting users’ needs with structured responses.
More than ever before, SEOs will need to have an understanding of information systems, data, and metadata (not just !) in order to build interoperable experiences that can transcend the traditional SERPs, not to mention the traditional desktop. We’ve seen early adopters like Best Buy and the BBC reap huge gains from being early adopters of the semantic web and even more advances are on the way.
Aleyda Solis: It’s too soon yet to say goodbye to Google as we know it, but I expect that sooner than later we will. Google knows that it needs to move from the easily manipulated link graph system.
Schema has a long way to go to provide consistent information about the meaning of web data to Google — since it cannot be directly validated as the authorship — and unfortunately, its usage has been already manipulated to spam rich snippets and increase visibility in the search results pages.
This needs to be improved and some type of validation system needs to be developed in order to achieve the quality expected from this data.
AJ Kohn: Just like the link graph, I think these type of answers based on entities are just ways to improve the search experience.
Rhea Drysdale: No. Google is flirting with a slippery slope if they try to produce nothing but answers. Besides, they already failed at answers. 😉
Cyrus Shepard: A majority of tough questions are still answered by search. I think we have many years ahead of us still with “search” engines.
Mike King: The Knowledge Graph is actually the coolest thing they’ve rolled out in the past couple years as far as I’m concerned. Stefan Weitz talked about how search engines are trying to move toward Object Oriented Search basically, and it’s cool to see this come to pass.
Google is definitely looking to answer more questions and cut down the time required to get to your answers so you’re going to see a lot more of that in the SERPs. Sites like whatismyipaddress.com are basically a done deal. I’m all for that, if your site doesn’t have a purpose beyond doing something a simple PHP script can do, then step your game up.
Finally… Mobile, Siri, Google Voice Search… Are we all wrong not thinking of Apple as the real competitor of Google? And, should we start adding speech therapy (logopedia) to our SEO skills (irony… but maybe not)?
Annie Cushing: I’m not sure voice search will really change that much about how we do SEO, save to say there may be a great emphasis on holistic search terms because people ask full questions instead of typing in keywords.
Ian Lurie: Siri is a little different; it’s not employing the same crawl/index/search algorithm that Google does. But they’re providing a mobile alternative to Google, so yes, Apple’s a threat. I think they’re a bigger threat to Google than Bing is.
Paddy Moogan: If I were Google, I would see Apple as a threat. The user base they have in iPhone and iPad is incredible, and with more and more people using mobile devices (even at home) to do common tasks online, Apple are in the perfect position to win market share from Google on the mobile front. I don’t think Apple will challenge Google with a desktop based search engine, but I can easily see them wanting to own the mobile search market. They already have a captive audience who use their devices, their biggest challenge right now is not messing that up!
Wil Reynolds: If Apple bought Twitter and Bing, I’d be scared if I was Google. But I doubt that is happening. It’s interesting to think about thought… It would give Apple the following:
- 2nd mobile platform;
- 2nd social network;
- 2nd search engine (hey Microsoft, throw in Hotmail, and give them the #2 email too)
Because right now platform wise, Google has the following:
- 1st mobile platform
- 3rd and 4th social network
- 1st search engine
- 1st email platform
Rand Fishkin: I’m not a big believer in Siri or voice search yet. Unlike the world of Star Trek, humans on Earth are trained to use silent input devices. A room full of workers talking to their computers isn’t just distracting, it’s less productive. People talking to their phones/devices in public or private will continue to be rare, IMO. Better input systems than a mouse and keyboard, I buy. Voice-activation, I don’t.
Richard Baxter: Apple, having a serious market share of all things mobile search, are already enforcing certain search behavior, by way of default settings on their devices. That’s not to say they don’t allow their users to make a choice. Don’t forget, Google has some pretty serious voice recognition technology, and I (having watched IO live) believe that Google are way ahead of the curve when it comes to a direct comparison with Apple. Open source vs Proprietary? Google will win.
Jonathon Colman: This is why information architecture and cross-channel user experience design are so important to the future of SEO: we’re not always going to search from our desktops typing plain text into a box.
As users and their search tools change, so must our strategies and tactics. And an SEO with a strong understanding of information retrieval systems, ontologies, and interoperability will be in a great place to pivot and innovate when these tools (and their successors, like Google’s Project Glass and their self-driving car) go to market.
Aleyda Solis: On mobile, I would also consider Apple a Google’s competitor in search. Apple started with Siri, and now its highly expected new Maps app for iOS 6 that will be launched with local information from Yelp. We will need to see the features, type, and quality of results we get from it when it is launched and how it evolves.
Also, if the voice search functionality gets popular over time, it will be important to identify the percentage of searches that are conducted using this option, how it affects users behaviour when searching, and our own presence in these results.
I think that this is also another step to strengthen and shape what the “Social-Local-Mobile” landscape will be when it becomes fully mature. I see this as an exciting moment to make the most out of a sector that it seems to be finally advancing as it should.
AJ Kohn: The biggest advancements are going to be around human and computer interaction. Apple certainly has been making headlines, but Google hasn’t been a slouch either. In fact, I think Google is in a much better position. They own a dominant portion of the smart phone market and have used machine learning to materially improve voice search.
But think about Google Goggles, Google Glass, and Google Now. The ways in which we search are going to change considerably in the next 10 years, and the SEO community will adapt and help businesses to understand how to meet those changes.
Rhea Drysdale: Should we see Apple as a competitor to Google? Yes. Anything that provides an alternative form of search is a competitor to Google. Did Apple consider Google a competitor when they started making phones? Yes!
I had this debate recently with a friend—is Google really trying to be Facebook in launching Google+? I said no because social media was a natural extension of search. My friend said that’s what an SEO says to justify their job. I still adamantly believe this though. Google is in the business of search. We “search” in many ways. Whether intentionally or not, Google is able to expand into new areas of search and justify new company growth in this way. But, they are still a search engine. Fundamentally, they help people find something.
With that in mind and thinking purely from an accessibility standpoint, voice search won’t replace traditional search. How many of us can/want to search with voice commands? It’s a fun party trick and convenient in a car, but we search through too many means to make this anything more than an extension of the Google search empire.
Cyrus Shepard: Great question. For a decade now, ads in search results have been the driving revenue force for search engines, but this model is completely flipped on its head with mobile and voice search. I’m not sure even Google has an answer for this yet. Perhaps it’s Google Glasses.
Mike King: Well I’m sure Amit Singhal sees Siri as his realest competition since he wants to make a Star Trek computer. It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.
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