I'm Rubber, You're Glue: Yahoo, Google and the Future of SEO
by Chris Copeland ~ December 1st, 2008 |
Last week, both Yahoo and Google introduced changes to the U.S. search results experience. Yahoo brought Glue to the States; the original version was introduced in India. Google brought forward GoogleWiki, which is about as close as Google has ever come to allowing users to taint the perfection that is the Google algorithm system. As one might expect, the Google release drew the lion’s share of commentary, much of it for the wrong reasons around privacy. But combined, these two offerings signal three major shifts in the search landscape.
Search as a Personal Experience
At a recent event of industry insiders, Young-Bean Song shared data from the Atlas Institute that 70% of all clicks were split between brand queries and navigational queries (those where someone knows the company and uses an engine to get to the URL). That means only 30% of all paid search traffic is going to the upper funnel and assisting those who are seeking guidance or direction. This data shows that search has become a safety blanket and people use it as their starting point to the web experience.
If this is true, then on a basic level GoogleWiki makes some sense in that it allows users to move things around and shape the 10 blue links as they see fit. Yahoo Glue is a fixed experience, but its predecessor in India allowed users to drag and drop the content on page to suit their own visual preferences. This is important not because of what any user sees on the front side, but what the engines learn on the back side. Today the algorithm is all about relevancy as defined by a computer directed by engineers. Both of these developments signal a major shift because they start to expose consumers to a new reality where they are more actively involved.
Play this forward a bit and think about these learnings combined with the approach of Microsoft’s Farecast (farecast.live.com). The site enables you to update in real-time the travel information based on advanced criteria specific to your needs. Nothing terribly unique versus Expedia or Orbitz, but GoogleWiki starts a comfort shift with consumers on the search results page. Once you are comfortable changing the results, you become more comfortable changing other aspects of results. Millions of people walk into department stores and when asked if they need help respond, “I’m just browsing.” If a search engine let you check a box and then displayed messaging and results from companies that valued a different type of communication with browsers, would you, the consumer, be more open to it? Would the advertisers be willing to pay more for a more appropriate conversation starter?
