There’s lots of chatter in my industry about the future of search engines and how Google’s new algorithms are changing the landscape of how business owners work to keep and improve their website’s placement on Google. What seem apparent to me is that the following important trends are surfacing and impacting what we see in the organic results.
What’s In?
1. Search results returned by location specificity. But not only your Google.com preference location that you have set, but by your mobile search history and actual Google recorded locations over time.
2. Search results returned by click through rate and bounce rate gathered by Google by users of the Chrome browser and Android tablet and smartphone operating systems. Anything Google can track it is and it appears to be using this aggregate information in returning search results.
What’s Out?
1. The ability to impact search results by building links and enhancing on-site keyword density.
2. The ability to impact search results by crafting title tags and H1 tags by page to try to boost search rankings.
3. Links from social media and activity on social media. Google is appearing to devalue these types of signals which is a reversal from their announcement that they were using them in their search algorithm over a year ago.
My Conclusion
As social activity can be spammed just like link building, Google appears to be devaluing these items in favor of location specificity through concrete user tracking based on search history and location. Just try to turn off Wi-Fi on your smartphone and you’ll see what I mean. In your Android system, Google keeps turning it back on as it uses Wi-Fi to track your location in order to know where you are so as to develop a better profile on you to determine what results to show you. Even if you turn it off, it will go back on.
Keep in mind that Google has now actively worked to tie your smartphone number to your desktop and tablet Google account and so now understands the full picture of who you are, where you live, and what you do based on your activity online and offline.
Google is using all this data on you to serve search results tailored just to your needs. It’s all about relevancy. See my next post on Thursday to see what you can and should do with your website based on what search engines are evolving to like for organic placement.