Home

Post: Search is changing. What do brands need to know?

11/1/12

Yesterday, Google publicly acknowledged that, when it comes to determining the relevance of information on the web, there is a challenger to its famous PageRank algorithm.

Please take a bow, for the challenger is … you and me.

That’s right. Google has finally recognised that people’s recommendations are potentially just as powerful as its algorithm for indicating relevance. That’s why the search giant has taken the plunge and launched social search, something it first mooted in 2009.

As well as delivering information in the search engine results pages (SERPs) based on PageRank, Google will from now on show information based on how much it has been recommended by your friends. In its first iteration, when you search, Google will return web pages and information shared by people in your Circles on Google+ as well as pictures shared by those people on Picasa, Google’s picture sharing service. Later iterations, you can be sure, will include search results based on social hints such as mentions in other Google services, such as Gmail and Docs, and eventually perhaps, non-Google services, such as Twitter. Or maybe not.

One area Google will struggle to integrate into its social search is Facebook. The biggest social network already has a strong partnership with Microsoft. These two are still working on powering Bing social search results with Facebook’s Instant Personalisation. What this means is that, much as Google does with Google+, Bing results will include web pages and information deemed relevant to your search based on sharing activity by your Facebook friends. This is a powerful combination, and we can’t wait to see how the partnership, first announced in 2010, pans out when it becomes fully operative.

How it affects brands and companies

Once social search becomes the norm, it will render traditional SEO an anachronism. Don’t worry, SEO companies have been changing their approach for years, so this will not render their advice worthless.

But there are broader lessons here for brands and companies wanting to connect with people via search. Here are three things you need to consider if you’re a brand with an online presence: To read the full blog post click here

Posted in: News