Does Google See It All?

No one really knows what exactly Google is thinking and doing. The industry has its assumptions, data and case studies of how we think Google behaves and operates. Other than what they release in their corporate profile and the blogs of brains such as Matt Cutts and Avinash, we can only rely on our data and what we know actually works.

If we had to state one thing we know, it would be the fact that Google is very good at seeing online activity even if it’s not on their search engine. Google constantly monitors Social Media, Social Bookmarking, Blogging, News and other search engines. So who’s out there that Google is watching?

1. Social Bookmarking Sites – Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit are among the sites that Google watches and somehow incorporates into their algorithm. Although, most of these sites adopt or plan to adopt the “no-follow linking rule”, presence on these sites definitely affect organic rankings.
2. Social Media Sites – Facebook, Twitter and Myspace dominate the industry. The fact that Twitter grew so much, and so fast, is impressive. While they deal with spam usage and growth limitation issues, Facebook is pretty stable now even though they do not make any money. MySpace has lost a lot of popularity to Facebook but they are still a big player. So what roles do all of these social media sites play in the eyes or Google and organic ranks? Well, first of all, it’s all visibility. Many big brands now incorporate social media into their strategies to communicate with their clients and fans. Google identifies this as an effort in relevancy towards their markets.
3. Blogging – This has been very popular with the developments of Content Management Systems such as WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. Google loves conversations and information related to conversations, so it all works together. A lot of niche blogs and content sources have appeared online. These niche blogs encourage users to interact with each other, comment and converse. There’s a thin line between providing free information to users online, and trying to sell them your products or services. Many bloggers can walk on that line now where they can bring in the traffic looking for information, and then sell to that traffic.
4. News – Since Google introduced Universal Search, a lot has changed. News has especially gotten a lot of attention in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). This is all for the good of search and relevancy. So, if you do have a news site or an editorial process, make sure you qualify as a news source on Google so you can show up in that section where Google displays related news for the search terms of users.
5. Search Engines – Other search engines are monitored by Google as well. Yahoo and MSN would be the top of the list. However, they have their eyes on Google as well. The competitors of Google almost identically copy every move by the search giant. You cannot blame them; Google is doing all the right things to enhance the quality of their services.

What better way to display all this competition and activity than a Cartoon by our designer; Jorge Acosta. And yes, Google does see it all!

Duran Inci

May 14, 2009