Personalized Search and SEO

Based on recent trends, it appears that Personalized Search, long discussed and written about, is now really being deployed on a significant scale. This doesn’t mean that what I am about to share with you won’t again change and very soon as Google themselves are still testing the waters.

Personalized Search is Google’s most current implementation to increase search result relevancy. It is based on their belief that by monitoring your search habits, your behaviors, your bookmarks and even your IP address, that Google can provide an even better result to your searches on Google. As you may understand, this new element in the Google algorithm has been subject to a great deal of controversy and suspicion … even a degree of paranoia and fear that Google is becoming an online big-brother of sorts. Google maintains they have nothing but the best of intentions and I, for one, feel that they have given us no reason yet to be suspicious. Rather, they are just trying to make their product better and better. Search is what Google does best to say the least and they do need to do all that they can do to maintain their dominance in Search.

So, what does Personalized Search mean to online advertisers, website owners and Internet Marketing Companies, especially those with strong emphasis on Search Engine Optimization?

Personalized Search results in different results for different people. In theory, no two searches for an identical keyword will get the same result. So, if you are on the phone with a friend and you are searching for stuff on your own computers simultaneously, you will no longer be reading from the same page. You will get different results for exactly the same keyword. As stated earlier, Google is recognizing your behavior through your saved searches, bookmarking activity and even your identifier or IP address.

The theory is that Google is customizing the search to fit your needs. This remains to be seen. It calls into question “what then is search?” Search implies that you don’t know something and you want to find out … so, customized search can be vulnerable to charges of limiting your knowledge source or skewing the results. As with most leading edge issues, few will recognize Personalized Search is even going on. However, as online marketers and SEO Companies, we have to know it is there and understand how best to deal with it. All online marketers should have little fear of it in my estimation because it all comes down to content anyway. Think simply and clearly about this. Regardless of the delivery mechanism, Google needs to provide the best results to its users. How are they going to do this and determine who should be 1st, 2nd and so on without a complete reliance of onsite and offsite content and the associated backlinks. So, be aware and fear not.

For Search Optimizers, there are some new challenges because we need to develop new tools and measure our performance in new ways. Search Rank (where a keyword is ranking) for a client is actually less useful going forward. Personalized Search means that people will see different listings for the same keyword. I like it actually because I believe that this will make content more important and our clients will benefit from that fact alone. However, we will have a harder time proving our success in an unvarnished way. We can’t simply tell a new prospective client to open up their Google Search and type in “widget” to see that your client is ranking on page 1 … they may not and with good reason – Personalized Search. Also, SEO Companies will no longer know “how it’s playing in Peoria” unless they are actually in Peoria. Again, fear not, as this is just another technological hurdle that will be dealt with through new tools to overcome this issue.

The main point of all of this actually comes down to what an Internet Marketing Company should be all about. Simply, we can never be about “things” or “packages of services” but rather results measured in ROI. Regardless of how the Search Engines deliver the results, you are paying Optimum7 to be on top of and to respond to all changes that are so constant online. So the ultimate key measures of traffic to the site, conversions of site visitors, the cost of the conversion and finally the Return on Investment are all that really matter.

There are many additional aspects of Personalized Search that we will be writing and blogging about so be sure to RSS or Digg or just remember to keep coming back. Please feel free to share your thoughts and comment below.

-Arthur Cooper

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1. Google Personalized Search: Caution – Be Careful how you Search!
2. Search Engine Marketing Industry and Personalized Search
3. Internet Marketing – Keywords…Keywords…Keywords
4. Internet Marketing … Don’t Repeat Your Mistakes!
5. Google Social Search vs. Bing Twitter Search