Web Design Ireland

Where does a company like Google move to next? They have yet to solve the problem of search, and we have seen an explosion of web 2.0 ideas, within the search field. I’ve already blogged about a few of the not so hot search ideas already. In my opinion there is still plenty of scope for innovation from the search giant, and the following post summarises my own thoughts on where they might be heading towards, and why I think web2.0 search solutions are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

On page time is good. Google love relevant results.

On page time is the new backlink. Fast forward 5 years from now, and my best guess at how Google et al will change, is the monitoring of on page time. Correlate this with a keyword phrase, and you have a kick-ass (extremely hard to spam) type of algorithm. Webmasters are going to have to think differently about how sites are structured, and how to create compelling content which satisfies the users query in order to succeed in the SERPS.

Google needs to find away to move slowly away from Pagerank, or at the very least create another system for complimenting pagerank. The potential for spam is just too great. We’ve already seen a few slaps on the wrist for people attempting to manipulate pagerank by buying links. Trustrank is where its at. Good neighbourhoods, frequent updates, naturally gained links and on page time. Google needs to find a scaleable way to score information online, social websites such as Facebook etc are not scalable. Nor are they going to find new content from the nether regions of the web. But combined with social content, you may be onto something. Mahalo will most definitely be a website which I’ll be keeping an eye on over the next while to see how it grows.

Web 2.0 :0 Google: 1

Blogs are good. Google loves Blogs.

At the minute if you are a blogger and ping Google when you post you will notice are listed extremely quickly, and chances are you will eventually make your way into Google’s blog search index. Why is this important? Well, Google lists blogs quicker in the index because it figures that the most likely places for breaking news to happen will be in one of two places. The major news portals (BBC, CNN etc) or directly from the web community on blogs. If it can be the first stop (and probably already is) whenever some major disaster happens, people will return the minute something which affects their lives happens. How many of you turn to Google on Sept 11th? Or when you heard a breaking news story on the radio and wanted more info? Holding on to a small subset of websites which update on a daily basis is good for business in Google’s book. Make a point of becoming one of those resources. I’ve yet to turn to technorati for breaking news. It still feels too geeky. My guess? Google acquires Technorati, and utilises the information to beef out its blog search offering.

Web 2.0 :0 Google: 2

Neighbourhooding is good. Google loves friendships.

If your website is based around a specific topic or area, you need to be getting backlinks from other reputable websites in the same area, associating your site around a theme. Make yourself a few buddies in your chosen theme, and start commenting on their blogs, and getting your content in front of them, the benefits of this are twofold. One you are going to get backlinks, Two you are associating your website with a particular subject area, and the search engines will thank you for it.

But can Google determine who is in your innermost circle of friends online, in the same way as Facebook or Bebo? no. not yet. That sort of information ultimately could be used to provide you with phone numbers, email address, directions to your friends house all from within a webpage, or better still from something like the iPhone. Social websites are still winning that battle.

Web 2.0 :1 Google: 2

Profiling is good. Google loves information about you and your visitors.

It wouldn’t in the slightest bit surprise me to see Google attempting to learn much more about users on an individual level. So think, web history, websites visited, myspace profiles, etc etc. They have the potentialy for capturing all of this information in order to customise your experience when you visit their site. That is where they are headed. Having enough information to predict exactly what you are going to search for, even before its happened. So think about what you can do to capitalise upon that, perhaps start thinking about capturing data yourself, so you can customise the experience of your own visitors. If they are comfortable with doing so of course. If you can change the way your website behaves for each visitor to it, your on page time is going to go up. Amazon and other major retailers are going down that road with great effect. Last.fm is also uncannily good at predicting what you listen to, and what you might like, so it is entirely possible to customise a search experience based on previous habits of other like minded users.

Google is still capturing a shed load more information than any other website combined. And they plan to capture more, recently deciding to build a $600 server farm in North Carolina. You can only imagine what quantity of data is going to be stored there.

Web 2.0 :1 Google: 3