Every site owner and webmaster wants their content pages to appear on the first page of Google’s search results. As Google moves from a links-based algorithm to a usage and traffic based algorithm, the SEO business is going to change - big time.
Every site owner and webmaster wants their content pages to appear on the first page of Google’s search results. The business of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) revolves around this concept. Good SEO ensures great traffic to a site, since most visitors find the site from the first page. This is called good Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Lots of money is spent on understanding Google’s search engine algorithms, and building links between sites to positively affect (manipulate) the SERP results of a website.
From Google’s point of view, this type of manipulation is bad for business. Google’s long term viability, depends upon delivering the best results possible on the first page. Manipulating SERPs results, via artificially building links, can often lead to poor results appearing on the first Google search page and loss of users and advertisers. So, in order to ensure continued leadership in search results, I believe that Google is slowly transforming the fundamental nature of its search algorithm, moving away from using links and moving toward actual usage statistics to determine search engine results.
Google has been a great success story for three reasons:
1) It has built a search engine that quickly and efficiently mines all forms of information on the Web and presents the information in a form that users find useful. The Google search engine is consider the best, because of its unique search algorithms which are at the heart of the search engine technology.
2) It has successfully, via its Adwords and Adsense business, monetized the business. Adwords is most successful because Google does the best of job matching ads with the advertiser’s target audience. Google cleverly combines its knowledge of page content with ads, to ensure best targeted ad placement. Thus, Google can rightly claim to deliver the maximum bang for the buck to its advertisers.
3) By systematically spreading Google Analytics and Google Toolbar throughout the Internet, Google has been able to build a unique database of usage statistics. This proprietary database of website usage information has now become a major technology moat, that even giants such as Microsoft will find near impossible to hurdle. It certainly presents a barrier to any new entrant into the search engine marketplace. Google’s long term leadership seems to be assured.
Using that data that Google has gathered with Analytics and Toolbar, Google’s search engine can know precisely which sites are getting the most traffic, which pages within these sites are most often visited, and how much time visitors spend on each of these pages. This last point is key, since visitors are voting with their time on which pages provide the most useful information for each type of keyword search. Voting with time, is much stronger, than voting with links.
Not only does usage information augment the quality of search results, but it also allows Google to present to advertisers information that advertisers want and need to know - i.e. who is seeing their ads, how often they are seeing them, and are the ads being converted.
It appears that search results based upon usage data will ultimately supplant links, as the way of determining SERP. While links, to a certain extent, can still be valuable (e.g. a link from a trusted website), they are a weak step child to the information that Google continuously collects, in real-time, of what the consumer is doing on the Internet.
The results of this change will be profound. Search engine optimization (SEO) will have to change from building links to building traffic. This is fine with Google, since one of the best ways, though one of the more expensive ways, is to drive traffic via Adwords ads. This means, of course, lots more revenue for Google, as SEO experts turn to ads to support their clients. This is not a bad business model. Not bad at all. Talk about symbiotic relationships between technology provider, advertiser, and publisher.
Going forward, there will be much more emphasis by Google and webmasters on traffic and advertising conversion. Not dissimilar from the TV business model. Can anyone expect to compete against Google long term? Maybe niche search engines, but broad-based search engines will have a very tough act to follow. But I will be looking for new search engine technology and companies that I think may be able to compete and will report back to you.
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Tags: google advertising, google analytics, google seo, google toolbar
Nice article. I want to make one point. Like (almost) everything else, there is good and bad side to using web traffic as a (significant) factor in rankings.
Good thing is that if the length of time spent on the site is a factor, then spam sites will definitely be pushed down.
Bad thing is that if the number of visits is a factor, then Google rankings will reflect ‘populist’ sites that will just result in a further reinforcing of the positive loop - hot sites will get even hotter as people who didn’t find them thru other social means will find them thru search. In the same time, other really good and quality sites that don’t have much traffic, or sites which target audience is less abundant, will get down on rankings.
Thanks for your comments Lazar. I know that you have lots of experience in this area, so I pleased that you found this article interesting. I totally agree with your additional comments.
Well off late we have been hearing a lot about google’s page rank system and SERP.Some web masters are in a view that page ranks are almost of no use and there is some haphazard manner in which google appraises domains especially after the last PR updates.What do you feel about this and what are views on this.
Cheers
Hi,
I don’t think that Google is doing anything that is haphazard. They probably have the most precise website ranking system of all the search engines, just try out the different search engines to prove this to yourself. It is just that the search engine algorithms have changed considerably over the last year or so, and webmasters and SEO experts are confounded by the changes. Standard SEO techniques are no longer working like they used to, and the whole approach will have to change, as Google moves away from links and PR as their primary source for ranking information. The mantra is going to become “get traffic” as opposed to “get links”.
Thanks for your comments.
Rich
One visitor commented on the Namepros website:
“As far as I know Google should already use their CTR and conversions data also within organic search to determine SERP. If you are rated on first page and do not achieve enough clicks or your bounce rate is high, you will be downgraded… So, I think it`s about traffic and it`s about conversions as well. Good for users and not so good for SEO industry. Google ideology is based on content relevancy.”
Nice comment.
Thanks.
Rich
Excellent article, enjoyed reading. Given it a Digg too!
Thanks for the Digg John. I put up a link, if others would like to DiggIt.
Rich
Hi Rich,
Thank You for such a knowledgable article. Till date I was not using Adwords now I suppose I had to be the master of it as well to get good SERP’s at google.
Thanks once again.
Thanks for the comments Bhumika. I want to emphasize that this is a hypothesis based upon my experiences with Google. It makes sense, and it I hope it suggests further areas of discussion and investigation.
Rich
Rich,
I’m one of the few that believe Google has been moving in this direction for 18-24 months. A linking only model was open to spamming. The trouble was all the previous incarnations of SEO were already spammed. Google has increasingly tightened the criteria of what constitutes a quality link. The Florida, Jagger, Nofollows, the recent battle over paid links etc have all collectively diminished links as the prime source of off-page influence. But in essence Google is off-page. So if raw links count for less then Google has to find another off-page method. You could be right.
One of the readers of this article commented on SeoChat:
http://tinyurl.com/2l73qg
“Google have had patterns saying they could use traffic registered for a number for a years now.
I think traffic is now a factor, but I would actually say they are more interested in user behavior than traffic, things like bounce rate for certain keywords, average time on site, number of pages viewed on site will be of more interest than how many visitors you get.
However this has become part of the algorithm rather than replacing other parts of the algorithm.
I would still place large amounts off effort into link building, but I would also be more aware that the quality of your site and general user experience will also start to have an effect on your ranking.
In short its going to be harder to get crap sites to rank from now on.”
I agree with this comment.
I think Google still looks at links and contents, but it uses its tools such as webmaster tools, analytics, and its products to verify.
Anyway great article thanks.
I still think links will play a major role for a long time. But Google will get smarter in validating the quality of a link as it always does up to today. Google has a good understanding of semantics and it bought Applied Semantics long time a go for a reason. And this semantics alone can help in the evaluation of a link. So as much as Google gets better in “reading links,” the SEO people will start moving into relevancy than just pushing the numbers higher. Then search results should get better.
As for traffic monitoring, I think Google can move and move more into this direction in the future, not only monitoring through the toolbar, but Google just has tons of products out there already, it knows your life. *LOL* Theres the Personalized search, the experimental voting on SERPs, your gmail accounts, calendars, Google talk etc. The more you get sucked into every product of Google, the more it may help them understand the traffic websites get from the URLs that spread all over these mediums
And like you, this comment is based on opinion. Everyone can feel free to agree or disagree to me. And I guess the best we can do is just wait and keep up-to-date on whatever is the latest on Google.
SEOContest2008, I am with you on that. Nice reply.
Hi there bkseo,
Yes, I very much agree with your extended perspective on this blog. There are more and more ways that Google can collect data, in real-time, about usage habits. It is very similar to what Microsoft did with the Windows operating system, and it creates a very long term technology moat.
Rich
Hi David,
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your comments. I agree with your analysis.
Rich
Hold on. Won’t a traffic based system be open to some sophisticated but easy spamming? Simply host a network of machines that call up Google, run search for keyword and then click on desired site in results and hang out for ages on that site.
How difficult would that be to arrange?
Dear students, we are an SEO company and would like to use your computer to automatically browse the internet and spam the Google results. We will pay you $10/month to let us do this in the background on your PC/laptop.
Or we will pay for your broadband? Or.. Or…
And there could be dozen more nefarious techniques.
I think it will be a factor but Google can’t lean to heavily on it. Moderately deep pockets could spam the hell out of it. Right?
Hi there Mark,
Yes, I thought of the bot problem. Bots are a very well known problem, and while the activity of all of them probably cannot be eliminated, there are many ways for analytics to detect and mitigate the effects of these bots. When I compare by own statistics with Google Analytics, I have noticed quite a discrepancy. Probably because Analytics is sophisticated enough to detect and ignore abnormal behavior.
Thanks for the comments. I am sure we will get more.
Rich
Good article.
Just came over from YE.
Although you refer to the changing of the algorithm; I think the crux of what you’re saying goes down to one of the fundamentals of optimization and that is simplyfying the visitors interaction with the site; optimising layout so that information is presented in a way that is easy to read and allowing the visitor to easily find what they’re looking for.
With that said; I recenlty set up a few highly relevant link and saw very good change in SERPS as a result. I don’t even bother with poor quality links any more.
Hi Dylan,
Appreciate the comments and thanks for the update on your own experiences.
Rich