Although many among the world of search engine optimization have expressed fear that Google’s recent announcement and rollout of personalized search results might be the end of search engine optimization as we know it, there’s a wealth of evidence to suggest that this actually isn’t the case. For starters, “normal” search engine results have already been dying for quite some time. Prior to the rollout, different “groups” had already been receiving a form of personalized results depending both on country and region. A person living in say, Los Angeles, had already been receiving results different from a person living in New York. However, this doesn’t mean that there won’t be any impact for search engine optimization.
With the new personalized search results, there are a few more things for those involved with search engine optimization to consider.
- Rank checking – For starters, rank checking certainly becomes far less authoritative for search engine optimization than it once was. Despite this, however, many search engine optimization firms will still find that it’s still a useful metric, and in fact, may actually be even more helpful in determining gains or losses in the new world of personalized search. An increase in traffic while maintaining a ranking would indicate search personalization being a benefit, while an improvement in ranking without a proportional boost in traffic indicates that it may be harming.
- Branding – Additionally, while user experience and branding have always been vital to search engine optimization, personalized results make both almost exponentially more important. Sites and brands that were once relatively inept at search engine optimization may now find that they’re performing better if their sites are popular among their users and they have at least a modicum of accessibility to search engines.
- Paid traffic – And finally, with personalized results, there’s a reasonable chance that purchasing traffic could help organic results for search engine optimization. If it’s true that Google is using signals from all sources of data, the impact paid results have on visit history could potentially give an indirect boost to standings in organic results. There’s even the chance that, when search engine optimization firms use services like Google AdSense to draw visitors logged in with their Google account and using a detectable method of tracking such as a toolbar, it will count towards personalization metrics.
Still, none of this adds up to a major shift in the search engine optimization landscape. The key goals of search engine optimization still remain the same. Making pages more accessible, targeting keywords, building useful and valuable content, and earning links from good sources still remain key to the process, and personalized search isn’t change this. Still, those involved with search engine optimization would do well to take note of the changes and prepare themselves for the ongoing change.
Written by Kenny K.
