Facebook and Twitter are portrayed as the arch nemeses of Google, when in reality, these new social forces will save Google’s search engine by allowing its results to become exponentially better. It will restore everything the Internet was meant to be–a democracy.
The Internet lacks democracy.
As an SEO and small business advocate and owner, my primary complaint about search engines is that they are terribly non-democratic. Search engines, like Google, confuse democracy with authority. They believe links mean votes, indicating authority, and votes elect the highest ranking pages in the search results. From my viewpoint as an online user and SEO, this is horribly flawed.
What I like most about democracy, on the other hand, is that for the most part, the “thing” that is liked by most people wins. “Liked” could be viewed as most insightful, most entertaining, most creative, most inspiring, or most anything. The success level of democracy is directly determined by the number of people that can participate in it. As any statistician knows, the more people that take part in a study or survey, the more useful, beneficial, and accurate the results become. A huge sample is a sure sign of what is most liked. It clearly identifies the winner.
The Internet thrives while online democracy suffers.
The web continues to grow furiously. It’s not too surprising that the number of people who read web content continue to outnumber the people who create it. These online creators, the writers of web content, are gatekeepers who continue to become more powerful on the web as their influence reaches out to more consumers. Why are these gatekeepers so powerful? One word: links. It is not power they have stolen. It is the power that search engines have granted them. In order to “vote” for a page, you need to link to it. This means only providers of online content can create links. It also means that only providers of online content have a vote.
For the majority of internet users who use the internet to seek insight, entertainment, creative ideas, inspiration, among other things, are merely sitting on the sidelines, watching countless elections take place without a ballot in what could be considered one of the most important “democracies” on the planet – the internet. End users who strictly consume the content are powerless to influence search engine rankings and have little to no say as to what they like best. Sure, the Google algorithm is mighty complicated with all kinds of factors that influence search rankings including speculation that bounce rates and time on page data indirectly gives power to the end user, but let’s be real here. Links have exponentially more power than any other element in the equation.
Social Media is here to build democracy.
The trend for how we would define “social media” now really started many years ago. Amazon led the way with the review revolution. All products could be reviewed and people’s voices were suddenly heard. People could vote for the products and services and opinions they liked. They didn’t even need a website. They didn’t need to link. Huh, what a concept.
Review forums popped up everywhere and informational and business listings also included review and rating systems. Content suppliers saw how powerful it was to give everyday consumers a voice. People love to share their opinion. We all know this. Blogs become popular and comments created more ways to voice opinions about topics of all kinds. The internet was becoming more, [gulp] “interactive.” The problem was that even though it was interactive, voices of consumers would influence conversations on a given web page, but they still could not cast a vote to the overall significance of the page to search engines. Web users simply could not affect the ranking of the page on search results.
And then came Facebook. We all know what happened next. It changed the way we share information. It continues to grow incredibly fast not only because it is a great way to connect with long lost friends, but because in some situations, it is a better and more reliable way to obtain information than from search engines. People like qualified advice from people they know. Google noticed.
Now social factors are impacting search results. In the latest search engine factors released by seomoz.org, there is a stunning correlation between Facebook shares and search engine rankings. It seems inevitable that other social factors will start to affect the search ranking meter even more as each day passes.
A change of power is happening slowly, right in front of our eyes. The sample of people from which votes are collected is now growing exponentially. This larger sample means more accuracy and confidence. It means a more democratic online world. Users of Facebook and Twitter can vote for content they like in a simple click. Everyday users tell search engines about valuable content. No website links are needed. No gatekeeper status is necessary. It’s beautiful.
Everyone should be thankful. Especially Google.
We should all thank Facebook and Twitter, among other social media leaders, for giving many more online users a voice for what pages should be at the top of search results pages through their respective social media power tools. Doesn’t it just make sense that consumers should determine the best pages, and not just the gatekeepers? The social trend has even pushed Google to come up with its very own social feedback button we all have probably heard by now, the Google +1 vote.
Those in SEO and search marketing should be thrilled that the time will come where we don’t have to spend every waking hour figuring out how to build links with our white hats, grey hats, and black hats. Instead, we can focus on content that everyone can vote for, not just gatekeepers.
Facebook is often seen as Google’s new nemesis. Ironically, Google should be most grateful since it will improve their search engine results immensely and ensure their continued dominance, so long as they can leverage the social data (the real democratic vote) the right way in their magical algorithm.
Social media has opened the door to millions of new voters with ballots in hand. Finally, these votes will count to determine what websites and web pages people like best. Don’t be surprised if search engine results pages start showing higher quality websites soon. After all, democracy put them there courtesy of social media.
What do you think? Do you see social media impacting the future online world as much as I do? Please leave your thoughts below.
