Traffic will become the true measurement of an SEO project--rather than search engine rankings--as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo continue to roll out behavioral search features. So says SEO guru Bruce Clay in an interview with Online Media Daily.

While personalization in application such as Google's SearchWiki enables searchers to tailor results, behavioral search anticipates the consumer interest based on cookie-driven historical searches. Historical searches will bias future search query results. To demonstrate behavioral search and ambiguity in the English language, Clay provides an example using the word "Java," intended to define coffee, programming language and location in the world.

Clay: Behavioral search anticipates information you're likely looking for. Think about email spam. If I were not interested in anything in particular, many things in my email inbox might be considered spam. If I am interested in going to Hawaii and suddenly began getting emails about travel discounts on airfares to Hawaii, suddenly the spam is no longer spam. The search engines know you might be interested in traveling because you visited travel sites, so ads appearing in Google could be targeted more toward travel, which would increase the frequency of clicks on those ads. It will take place behind the scenes and based on individuals. There also are many privacy issues, but it will come because it has the ability to change the revenue model for Google by a factor of 4 to 1.

OMD: What are some of the privacy issues you anticipate?

Clay: If I'm planning a surprise trip for my wife and I do a search, it will be bias by travel. Or, if I visit single sites like Harmony.com or Match.com, I don't want ads for where singles hang out popping up when I do a search on restaurants. There will be a visible change that would bias people toward or away from certain things. You will likely have an opt-in/opt-out feature and a process that restricts your behavioral group. For instance, I may want to have results biased by my behavior or a community of people that may know more than me on a specific topic, such as soccer. The search engines have been working on this for a long time, and I expect it to come in the first or second quarter in 2009.

(During the interview Clay provided a demonstration where Google, based on certain searches, recommends related searches. In some instances, Google prints a message across the right side of the query page above the "results 1 of 10,000" line that reads: "Customized based on recent search activity. More details." This is Google customizing results by looking at your behavior and location based on prior searches and IP address.)

OMD: How does behavioral search influence the job of SEO experts as it relates to search engine ranking?

Clay: Since each query is based on prior search, it becomes a stream-of-consciousness issue. The problem our clients and SEO experts face is how do you determine ranking, especially if search engines include localization? That's why I believe ranking is dead and the industry will go through drastic changes in the first half of 2009.

OMD: How will your business change?

Clay: We emphasize the objective of search engine optimization is traffic, not ranking. We want to understand the community and the behavioral group that's typing in these phrases and how to use appropriate phrases, keywords and page structure for the intent and group doing the search. If I know how to behave in a way that attracts people doing the search, and I'm the only one making my page look that way, I will always get more traffic. The object has always been traffic. It's just that ranking is a much easier way of measuring tracking.

OMD: Bruce Clay Inc. is well-established, but what about the small SEO expert. Will he/she make it through the change?

Clay:: We will see a transformation in the industry. Analytics will play a major role. The little guy can make it. Google Analytics is free. They can go to their clients and install some sort of measurement tool to monitor traffic. They just need to talk with their clients and say: "Hi, I can report your rankings for you, but the ultimate objective of SEO is traffic." Analytics will help them understand they are paying hundreds of dollars for SEO, but getting thousands of dollars in traffic. They are looking for a return on their investment. If you can't measure that, you are in trouble.

I will say there are many doing SEO that are not good at it. Many business owners don't understand the difference between ranking and traffic. These SEOs take advantage of them by getting rankings for words that no one searched on. They walk in and beat their chest saying: "Hey, you're ranked No. 1 for 20 terms," when in fact there's no traffic for those terms. Behavioral search will educate the business owner on SEO business metrics. They will be able to tell when they make money from the changes.

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