I’m sick of social. There. I’ve said it … but Google’s just getting started. So, I feel compelled to clue you in on the changing landscape of search. As you know, Google’s latest update changed the results we see when conducting research using their search engine. Their primary goal was to eliminate or prevent low quality sites from ranking above more relevant Web pages.
Because of Google’s heavy reliance on link as “votes,” there was a constant need among Webmasters to “feed the beast” through link building. In the early days of the Internet, people were generous in providing a link to relevant content and thus improved the interconnectedness of the World Wide Web. Oh, to think back on those innocent days….
Over the past 15 years, professional Web marketers have had to contend with link farms, blog carnivals, spun content, article directories, comment spam, and so on. In order to stay competitive, some companies bought links and got caught.
One way to eliminate all this tomfoolery is to use other quality signals for ranking – signals that cannot be so easily gamed. Here’s where social mentions become part of the dynamic. Google bought PostRank recently which gives them the technology to analyze content for audience engagement. But how do you program an algorithm to determine quality content?
That might be where PostRank comes in. Their technology analyzes blog posts for engagement analysis or how the blog’s audience engages with the content. But PostRank will also likely be used to determine organic search engine rankings.
So what does this mean to you and I?
Google is Going More Social
By adding a +1 button for user feedback in search results and tying employee bonuses to the company’s success in the social space, Google has already been moving in that direction. It’s clear that Google is serious about being a major player in social. PostRank gives them the ability to measure how people interact with content, essentially giving them a social “quality score” which they can use to judge the content’s quality.
Social engagement is much more difficult to fake. Shares on Facebook and Twitter (and, to a lesser extent, comments on blog posts) are not completely anonymous – they require a user login. Google will be able to determine how popular content is with real Web users, which is a better indicator of quality than backlinks.
My Light Bulb Moment
Website owners should not underestimated the significance of social signals. I hadn’t updated one of my Web properties for six months nor checked my traffic stats because of pressing client needs. Assuming my traffic would have been reduced to a trickle, imagine my surprise when traffic was holding steady, and I continued to rank for a number of mid-range keyword phrases. (I also hadn’t actively built links to the site in over four years.)
Curious, I checked my Web referral stats. All of my traffic was coming from Facebook! People were finding deeper content and “liking” it. That’s when I knew that the future of search is in social.
Make no mistake, strategy still drives effective social engagement, but businesses that ignore its increasing relevance will do so at their peril.