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RSSThe title of the panel at the inaugural SMX in Seattle was "Search Personalization: Fear or Fear Not." (Discussed from an attendee's point-of-view in yesterday's Search Insider.) As moderator Danny Sullivan often does, he set the panel up to generate a little debate: Michael Gray vs. Google, Yahoo vs. Google. I was like Switzerland, in neutral territory. Danny did get his conflict, with Michael taking a few shots at Google and Tim Mayer throwing down the gauntlet about the lack of transparency on Google's personalized search results.
Guess What? SEOs are not your Average Search User!
To be honest, I was a little taken aback that the audience didn't jump all over how personalization was going to change SEO. Most of the questions from the crowd centered on how you opt out of personalized search and why personalization wasn't good for them. I have some issues with that, which of course I'll share in this column:
- First, this crowd was trying to argue from a user's point of view. Okay, they're SEOs (this was the organic track) and most of them have been using search since Lycos was a little baby spider. Just how typical do you think these users are? Meet Gord Hotchkiss at Search Insider Summit Utah!Gord Hotchkiss will be there speaking during "Conference Opens and Opening Remarks" on December 03 at 8:45 AM. Top executives will be there. Will you?
Register today and save. - Second, I question their motives. Do they hate personalization as a user, or as an organic optimizer? My guess is the latter, but it doesn't seem very noble to joust with Google because the company is making your job harder. Far better to cry foul as a user than as a PO'd organic optimizer. As somebody said to me after the session, do you really think Marissa Mayer is losing sleep because the Google user experience for SEOs isn't all the SEOs want it to be?
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This was a perfect opportunity to start planning for the new world of SEO, post-personalization. There's a ton of value we can add, as smart, proactive practitioners, but I didn't see anyone take the opportunity to delve into this. Perhaps the really smart ones were keeping their mouths shut, content to let their competitors bitch about the inevitable while they plotted their takeover.
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I found everyone fixated on the current threshold of personalization on the page, taking comfort in the fact that it's only impacting a small number of searches. I reminded them that this threshold is a totally arbitrary one set by Google, and could (and will) change at any time.
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Everyone is taking a siloed view of personalization, looking at the organic results in isolation. It's almost as if they're assessing the amount of damage control required. I'm not sure they realize the import of personalization. This is a rule changer, a paradigm-shifter. This is the new generation of search functionality. It changes the game dramatically. Whatever happens on the organic side will roll over to the sponsored side. It will drive universal search. It will drive everything.
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Finally, this is not happening just on Google. Microsoft's recent comments made it very clear its strategists are thinking long and hard about personalization. Tim Mayer cautioned me not to make the mistaken assumption that just because Google was first out with personalization, it's the only one working on it. In fact, Matt was quite delighted when he found an article in Times Online discussing how Yahoo Vice President Tapan Bhat confessed at the Next Web conference in Amsterdam that personalization was the future of the Web, including search. You can define personalization in a number of different ways, but however you do it, it dramatically changes our online experience.
So, I leave you with this. I went into the SMX session ready to discuss four fundamental changes I see emerging from personalization that SEOs and SEMs have to think about, right now. No one asked me for the slide deck after the session. There was not one question about strategies for leveraging personalization. Everyone was more interested in grilling Matt on why the opt-out link had disappeared from the results page.
Although I'm tempted to join the smart and silent search marketers, I think I'll make one last attempt to share this information with the SEM/SEO community -- perhaps in a white paper, perhaps a future column. But I'm only going to do it if you're serious about pushing the envelope into this new opportunity. Reply to the blog below and let me know. Otherwise, I'll just shut up and nod my head while you bitch about the fact that it's too hard to opt out of personalized search. You'll excuse me if I don't answer; you see, my mind is on something else.
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I have to say that personalization bothers me personally from the standpoint of this: I don't want someone else (or a computer) deciding what I want to see and what I don't see. I don't want to miss something in a search because a program thinks that I don't need to see something.
You're my new guru by the way in terms of SEM.
Lisa
I would love to know more of your thoughts on how Personalized Search Results will evolve and impact both searchers, brands and SEO's. Your presentation was not only thoughtful and insightful, but it was quite compelling! Great job and thanks for helping to make SMX a success.
Gary
Please whisper....vewy, vewy quietwy...and let all of those that want to do King Canute impressions and hold back the tide get washed out to see...while the smart ones surf the wave...your insights, as always, are very much appreciated...
KP
I’m from the mid-west US. We have, during tornado warnings people who stand on the front stoop and say, “What tornado? The wind isn’t blowing that hard.� All the while the meteorological freight train is plowing a path to their home from the back side.
As user adoption increases, and engines increase the impact they allow personalized search to have, there will be greater impact on SEO. Rather than complain, web masters need to make as many connection points in as many areas of search (image, video, news, local, text, etc) as makes sense for their category and users. This is the hard part, as we may end up with a lot of irrelevant stuff on web sites just trying to learn how to tackle personalized and universal search convergence.
I will be interested in some of you user / eye tracking studies once personalized search becomes more prevalent. Will the first results be more relevant, tightening up the hot spot further? Or, will the engines identify so much more relevant content that users go further down the SERPS with enthusiasm because of so many good results? Does this draw down SEO ops or increase them?
We’ll see.
It feels a bit like the great cookie debate. Cookies are evil "they" can track you vs. cookies bring an improved user experience. In this case as in the cookie case, the technology providers seem to think the user experience case is a slam dunk and all the privacy concerned hysterics will settle into the background noise. In addition, currently the results from personalized search aren't that dramatic. For most people it probably doesn't seem positive or negative, just there, if they notice at all.
When Amazon shows me books related to ones I've bought before I sometimes appreciate it, and I recognize it for marketing based on my past history which is often not related to my current intent. And occasionally, when it is extra insistent and doesn't match my current intent, I get annoyed with it. When Google or Yahoo serve up my local dentist instead of one a thousand miles away, that's a good thing if I want a local dentist... I don't always.
And I love serendipity. I would hate to see personalized search kill serendipity. Finding the coolest ever site on X because of a thought-to-be-unrelated search on Y.
Anyway it seems inevitable, so I'm interested in how to leverage...
I am always very interested in what you have to say. I have followed your thoughts on personalization for a while and I agree it is the future. I think the resistance from the SEO community is that we haven't figured out how to leverage personalization in an effective way, let alone explain it to our clients.
Personally I am live for paradigm shifts and the opportunity they represent.
If you are looking for people to tell you we are interested in knowing what to do with this information count me in. I got hired at my current job, because I shared a vision with the CEO of creating and sharing the information and services of his company in all 3 formats - text audio and video. I believe it just becomes more imperative with Google's introduction of Universal search. I'd love to hear your ideas about universal search, and how us in the SEO / SEM industry can contribute - and obtain our own objectives as well!
And that's just the consumer side!! What about SMBs, who are likely to be a larger part of the personalized search experience??
I understand what keeps SEOs up at night. But if Google, MSFT, et al are interested in personalization strategies, this last mile is going to take a lot of work to figure out how all of the parties are going to play nice.
Almost 15 years ago, we used to joke that at MSFT, quality was job 3.0. While all of this "Web 2.0" stuff is good for showing the potential of how apps can interoperate, I think it will be "Web 3.0" where search is refined to the point where it is truly usable -- intuitively, and without fear -- by the masses.
And if you're willing to share your deck, I'm happy to share our findings based on our unique perspective on personalized search. :)
I would certainly be interested in hearing more about your further thoughts on how to adjust to and leverage this shift. I agree with your assessment that this is not going to go away. It's only going to spread further, and therefore as marketers, we've got to be flexible, expect change and adapt accordingly. I would encourage you to please publish more on the subject.