SMX West 2008 Opening Keynote
Another SMX conference has come, and I sit waiting for Danny Sullivan’s open keynote. The lights go down and AC/DC’s “Hells Bells” comes over the speakers. And, then Danny is introduced. Danny opens by telling the story of SMX.
The keynote is titled “Search 3.0, 4.0 & Beyond”.
In Danny’s nomenclature, Search 1.0 was the original content based SEO. This lead to keyword stuffing, invisible text, and other fun things like that. Ah, the good ole days.
Search 2.0 used off page factors. Google came out with PageRank, exploiting the “democratic nature of the web”. This lead, of course, to today’s linking market economy.
Search 3.0 is blended results such as Google’s Universal Search. Search 4.0 adds personalized and social results.
Blended results believes that the answer to everything is not a web page. Other forms of content should be returned as well. Google has had verticalized search such as for images for some time, but most people weren’t aware of it. Blended search refers to the idea that vertical search is blended into the rest of the results.
Danny has coined the term Search 3.0 to wake up marketers to the fact that there has been a significant change in the SEO landscape. It’s no longer just about links!
Localized searches are especially vulnerable to this. Often the first result in Google for a localized search comes from Google Local. On smaller monitors (such as with laptops), this may push everything else down below the fold. If you’re not in Google Local, you may not be seen for this sort of search.
Vertical searches often has less competition and tends to be more like Search 1.0 in ranking factors.
Right now, Google is really the only engine engaging in Search 4.0 (personalized search). Rankings changed based upon your previous behavior. If you tend to visit a particular site, it may rank a bit higher.
Currently, Google looks at the following factors for personalized search:
- iGoogle Personalized Home Page content
- Google Bookmarks
- Search History (click)
- Web History (visits)
Social search uses data from social networks to reshape search results. It is vulnerable to influence by “fake friends”. There are also significant privacy implications. The social networks can address this by working at an aggregate level, rather than the individual level.
To drive this on Google, use social network buttons and great content. Wait and see on the other engines.
An understanding of social media marketing will be required to compete in SEO in the future. Together, they are very powerful:
- Build links
- Leverages authority sites
- Delicious may start to influence results
- Google Reader could do the same
- Prepares you for more to come
Search 5.0 may be human refinement. Mahalo.com is an example. It’s cluttered, but has potential. Search Wikia is too early to evaluate.
Human refinement is especially powerful for the changes in relevancy that are caused by current events.
Personally, I find this nomenclature useful and hope the industry adopts it.
Danny comments on a few other issues:
Microhoo - No one knows what will happen or what each company should do. Danny is not convinced by the “scale” or “employees” argument. “Traffic” remains the most compelling argument. Five years into the search business, Microsoft has not been able to move the needle. Danny likes having three big competitors, and hopes that Yahoo makes it as a brand.
I still believe this merger is going to have trouble on the regulatory end. Microsoft has a history in this arena. No, a Microsoft-Yahoo merger doesn’t reach anywhere near monopoly levles, but since when have bureaucrats behaved rationally?
Video to Ally with Search? - Search is boring, hard work and pennies on the dollar. Lots of money in cool video. Pushing video ads isn’t search. AdWords isn’t search. Nor is it with video. Video fo AdWords does look to be search related. This could bring in both money and coolness to search.
Recession to Hurt Search? - Search thrived during the last downturn. Buying may dip, but it won’t stop. Search may be more essential than other types of ads. Danny hopes that Google and others break actual search out from other types of ads.
I would posit that it’s crucial that the search engines break their reporting up by actual ad type. Google in particular has rolled it into a single bucket for way too long.
SEO Reputation Problem - The mainstream media slams us. We slam ourselves. There’s been a string of negative articles in the last couple of months. In the past, we’ve been called as bad or worse. Each time, some see reputation issue as a crisis that must be solved. Yet, SEO continues to grow and be in demand. It sucks, it isn’t fair, but maybe some standards can help ease the emotional burden.
The biggest problem isn’t white hat versus black hat, but ripoff artists that both hats dislike. Maybe we need a centralized complaints area. SEO needs better PR, with more case studies on how it helps. The “Is It Time for Search Marketing Standards?” panel today will look at some of these issues.
I’m sitting on that panel and am looking forward to a spirited discussion!
