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How the order of Google search results will be affected by new search capacity and what this means for your website

Written by: Rob Lawson

Article Overview: The last six months has seen the development of two major changes that will affect the order of Google search results. Google hopes these changes will improve search for users and also help them stay at the top of the search engine pile. Firstly is improving the ability of search spiders to read flash and audio-visual content, and secondly, the introduction of SearchWiki. Both developments will impact the way you think about search engine optimisation (SEO) and content for your website.

How the order of Google search results will be affected by new search capacity and what this means for your website

Google still has the lion's share of internet searchers (64% of U.S searches according to Nielsen Online and an estimated 81% of global searches). Not a company to rest on its laurels, Google wants to make sure it maintains this dominance.

The last six months has seen the development of two major changes that will affect the order of Google search results. Google hopes these changes will improve search for users and also help them stay at the top of the search engine pile. Firstly is improving the ability of search spiders to read flash and audio-visual content, and secondly, the introduction of SearchWiki.

Both developments will impact the way you think about search engine optimisation (SEO) and content for your website.

Introducing the ability for search engines to find information in flash

SEO has always been the realm of words. Search engine spiders trawl sites for content and the only content they recognise is text. This has not changed. What has changed is technology that allows search engines to now 'read' rich Internet applications (RIAs) and other dynamic content and scan them for text and links.

Up until this development (spearheaded by a relationship between Google and Adobe and at present particular to Adobe Flash Player files - SWF), dynamic content (content that changes in response to user input) and RIA applications were invisible to search engines. They showed as black boxes and came up woefully far down the list in the order of Google search results.

The twofold effect of this was that sites built around these had to find alternative ways to make themselves visible to search engines, and searchers were not finding potentially useful sites because information was hidden.

If you've got flash you don't have to change a thing

The best news in all of this for websites that use SWF is that there is no need to adjust a site. Google currently has the Adobe technology and Yahoo! will soon adopt it, meaning potentially thousands of quality sites that were previously hidden will now be able to rate more highly in the order of Google search results.

Increase the SEO potential of your site

So you still have to pay attention to all the usual SEO guidelines (relevant and compelling content being the most important) but there is now greater flexibility in how and where you can apply your SEO on your site. It shouldn't be long before Adobe competitors such as Microsoft jump on board and also create software to make their flash programs search engine friendly.

Google SearchWiki gives you the power to affect SERP

Google SearchWiki is here and it's creating a mixed bag of opinions. If you are logged into a Google account, you will now see an arrow icon and an x icon next to each result that comes up on a SERP (search engine results page). There is also a text bubble icon and down the bottom of the page, a few new options to hit.

All of these add up to Google's introduction of users controlling the order of Google search results. Albeit to a limited extent. Click on the arrow and that URL will shoot to the top of your results page. Click on the x and it will disappear. Add a comment via the balloon and anyone else searching on that topic will be able to read it. Add your own URL to the page and it will show each time you enter that search.

The key is that these changes will only show for your personal Google account. They won't affect the order of Google search results for others (although the comments are universally visible).

What the critics are saying

Speaking of turning off, one major flaw in the application to date has been the lack of an 'opt-out' button. You can find out ways to switch it off by doing a Google search (the irony!), and Google's Vice President of Search Product and User Experience Marissa Mayer states that it is likely the company will develop an 'off' button early this year.

Critics of SearchWiki see it as a time consuming annoyance. And query the benefit in being able to add your own URLs to search results. As Brendan Slattery of PC World asks: 'How does that make sense? If you're searching for something, shouldn't you already know the destination URL, and if you do, why are you searching?'

What does this mean for Search Engine Optimisation?

Google states that they will not be using what happens on the SearchWiki to modify their ranking algorithms. However, there are indications that Google will monitor SearchWiki patterns and results may eventually impact on page rank and the order of Google search results. That may mean 'promoting' a page that many users are adding to their SERP, according to Google Product Manager Cedric Dupont or, as Marissa Mayer has suggested, 'downgrading' a page that many users are removing from view.

It will also be possible for sites that do not necessarily appear on page one of a Google search to get a higher ranking through the SearchWiki page. Users can comment on and vote for their favourite sites, so results on this page will vary from the order of Google search results for a natural search. So of course you can put a vote in for your own site (why not?). But Google will monitor black hat techniques in the same way as they do for natural search so there isn't much point in trying to 'stack' your website on thousands of SearchWiki pages.

SEO will still come down to the quality of content on your site and its popularity with users - on both natural search result pages and SearchWiki comments pages.

This is an area that may evolve quickly - especially if internet users take it up with enthusiasm. Once it has been around for a while there will be a clearer picture of how it is impacting on SEO and page rank. So stay tuned!

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Article Tags: adobe flash player, adobe technology, best news, black boxes, dominance, dynamic content, global searches, google, google search results, internet applications, internet searchers, laurels, ria, search engine optimisation, search engine spiders, search engines, search spiders, site google, visual content, words search



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Re: How Do You Check Google Ranking? - Hi David, Thanks for this post and the great replies (and thanks for the links Alan). This is something that has puzzled me in the past and as you say GT, we need to evolve and find other ways to get accurate results. Whenever I search for my keywords I always seem to be on page I and my website is starred which I have always assumed means that I have visited it before so the results are meaningless. I tend to do as you do David and search in Google from someone else’s PC which is not ideal at all. regards, Mal.
Re: Google Custom Search: Let Visitors Search YOUR Site Only - Hi GT, I have a Google search box on my site since I started. I generated it from my adsense account, and now after an upgrade they call it Google custom search. This is a great tool. 1- people can search your website if they are looking for something specific 2- When people use the search box to search outside your site and click on the links you get commission. it is easy to install and can help your marketing efforts.
Re: SEO... - Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of civilizing the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical searchengines. This gives a web site web presence.
Seo way of Marketing... - Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.
Re: How To Succeed With Search - At this point, I lean towards "organic" search engine optimization. Last fall, I stretched my advertising budget and purchased a plan to put my website on the top of 15 search engines for the key phrase, "Life Coach". The only catch was that the person must have downloaded a specific popular tool bar on their computer in order to access it (several million had). The company was able to prove to me that close to a 1,000 people per month had seen the actual top part of my website open on their tool bar. They captured the IP addresses to prove it. Just previous to that, I had undergone some search engine optimization using key words and removing my heavy graphic intro page. Not long after I made the purchase for the tool bar advertising, the search engines had crawled through my updates and I was suddenly number one on Yahoo and number one on Google for Women's Entrepreneur Coach. Other key word variations were high enough to be in the top ten. I did notice that these results would shift rapidly and I was required to keep my website updated. Right now, I've been attempting to target Women in Business and Leadership. I've got a bunch of changes to do to get back up where I want to be, but now I know how to do it. Anyhow, as I watched the results of my paid advertising, I realized the organic method drove far more traffic to my website. I submit articles and post on Forums so some of those factored into the "organic" search engine equation. However, even without those, very few of the tool bar advertising ever clicked to see more of my website. I plan to stick with the "organic" method.


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