Tynan's Anger

Image via WikipediaYesterday, the folks at findingDulcinea released SweetSearch, which combines Google algorithmic rankings with quality reviews by actual human beings. When playing around with it, I noticed that when you search for a specific business type in a specific location, rather than getting the results of any individual firm or company, your results are almost exclusively a listing of directories for that business type.

What interests me about this is what it says for the future of SEO: Jeff Jarvis and others have argued that when personalized and semantic search become more powerful, the SEO industry may cease to exist. I never really gave all that much credit to that argument, but after using Sweet Search I saw how that could eventually come to pass.

The reason the end of SEO as we know it today is a possibility, however remote, is the differences in priorities between the searcher (Google's customers) and the people working towards being found on search engines. On the one hand, a listing of a directory of businesses, rather than one or two individual businesses that happened to have gamed Google (or hired someone who has) is more useful to the searcher. While gaming the system is not inherently illegal or unethical, it does probably end up hurting the product for the searcher, even if everything is kept White Hat. On the other hand, the field of SEO is booming—it's one of the few tech fields that is still seeing growth, and the fact that Sweet Search produces search results that are all but useless for hired SEOs is a potentially devastating and portentous sign for anyone who makes their living in the industry. It's still unclear what exact mechanisms Sweet Search uses to get its results, but it may be the closest indication we currently have to what Google is striving for in the long run in terms of their search product.

Note that even if SEO were to decline as a result of this discrepancy, it would NOT mean the end of the SEM industry by any means. There's still a lot that can be accomplished by marketing through search engines without strictly looking to improve organic rankings, even if getting a high ranking is a much sexier and more noteworthy goal. Regardless of what happens to SEO with contextualized and semantic search, here are the two main conclusions I can draw from the future Sweet Search depicts:

1. SEO'ers should focus more extensively on directories—and for reasons other than backlinks alone. While backlinks are nice things to have for traffic and crucial for SEO, directories can also provide companies with clients without those clients even touching Google. If the categories are sufficiently specific, potential customers would be likely to convert at a higher rate through a directory rather than a general organic search. Of course, while most directories SEO marketers use now are independent of Google, and many exist purely for providing links, it's inevitable that Google will look to get a larger pie of the online directory business. This is why directory search marketing Google Local, which is already a rapidly growing priority for SEOers (especially for businesses that mainly operate locally), may become an expanded and someday even predmoniant form of search marketing.
2. Paid SEM like PPC, while not as immediately cost-effective in the short term, may have more endurance in the long term. I would never tell anyone to stop building skills and experience with SEO simply out of a general fear for where the industry is going. I'd be stupid to do it myself. But no matter what happens to SEO over the next 5 years or so, it's inevitable that industry standards will go through major changes rather frequently over this time. Volatility in SEO conventions means volatility in its usefulness, and hence, volatility in its potential to earn money. While PPC, AdWords, and other paid methods of search marketing may cost more and produce smaller ROI, paid search marketing has much more stable standards, and probably won't face all that many significant changes over the next 5 years, especially when compared to SEO. Hence, PPC and paid SEM are probably a more reliable bet in the long term. For yet another disclaimer, remember that the risks of SEO may be overrated. Of course, that's what they were saying about real estate derivatives 3 years ago, so one should keep in mind all the dangers that come with a higher risk/higher reward form of marketing, even if the risk is only slightly higher.

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Labels: AdWords, art versus business, findingDulcinea, google, jeff jarvis, Pay per click, Search engine marketing, Search engine optimization, seo, Sweet Search

So in case my minimal blogging of late wasn't enough of an indication, it seems I cannot get to blogging about everything I want to regularly. That's why every Sunday I will be posting new and noteworthy links that slipped through the cracks on Tynan's Anger, as per my tryout post on Wednesday. You Got Yr Link Bomb is meant as a cross between the Will Cordero Memorial Linkpunch and the Week in Review post of the Gawker Media blog of your choice. Hence: links featuring commentary with heavily regulated snark. These links did not get the full Tynan's Anger treatment, through no fault of their own.

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• Starting off, we get possibly the best Onion Sports article in weeks, maybe months. In my mind, it's the best Onion sports article since the now-legendary CC Sabathia-Prince Fielder Onion article. This one has it all: it satisfies the Cowboys haters, mocks Tony Romo exactly in a way he needs to be mocked, it's a laffer, and it's got its own consistent, ridiculous grammar and style. This one gets pwus one for being a vewy funny.
• Much to my relief, Synechdote, New York not only doesn't suck, but it may be Charlie Kaufman's best movie yet. I've been excited for this movie when it was first announced over two years ago, and the delays have had me biting my nails. Now, with the exception of Doubt, there may be no movie I'm looking forward to more this Oscar season.
• Roger Ebert negatively reviews a movie that he only watched for the first 8 minutes. He immediately follows the review with a brilliant explanation of why he felt justified in doing so. It was a totally ballsy move on his part, one a lesser critic could not get away with. But the fact that he was so responsible about his explanation is probably what made it work. As a side note, in the wake of Frank Rich admitting he ignores his comments, Ebert has gone out of his way to praise his surprisingly reasoned, intelligent commenters, who have earned accolades from Computer World. Come to think of it, this may inspire a separate blog post of its own. In other news, Arlene Croce's head just exploded.
  
• Nobody likes the starfucker Ben Lyons. How we miss Roger Ebert's vocal chords. It's now a father-son competition to have the most unwatchable film review show on television. When those shows are on, I just usually pop in my Critic DVD.
• Footage from the marathon Fucked Up concert is starting to appear online. Fucked Up's blog post makes it seem like they had no part in the current video, but I suspect otherwise. Sooner or later, we're going to be talking about Fucked Up as stealing the best band in the world title in indie circles from Yo La Tengo. And by "sooner or later", I mean "now," and by "we,' I mean "I."
• In the first kinda douchey move by the otherwise genial Tim Westergren, Pandora lays off 20 employees right as the site begins making headway in its royalties battle. Is it just me, or are you already getting sick of employers using the vague term "economic realities" to justify layoffs? If it's a cost-cutting move, say it. If you're preparing for the future, say it. But "economic realities" means about as much as saying "good teams win games;" in fact, it probably means even less.
• The Trib is winning kudos in many new media advocates' eyes. Just after endorsing their first Democratic Presidential candidate ever, the paper is now considering putting a halt on their AP wire service. Needless to say, Jeff Jarvis thinks this is the bee's knees. I could think of at least three things with the word "wire" in them than I'd prefer reading to AP articles: the script of episodes of The Wire, the DVD notes to The Wire, and the lyrics to songs by the band Wire. I would however, prefer reading AP articles to Advanced Placement exams.
• Barack Hopey Obama raised what some analysts are deeming a asston of money in September. Imagine how many Main Sts. could be supported by the $150 million in Obama donations alone. If only a certain University of Chicago professor donated a fraction of that money to the school, we'd have an excuse to avoid these annoying protestors. Maybe. Probably not.
• Finally, TERRY FREAKING TATE IS BACK!!!!

Labels: barack obama, ben lyons, charlie kaufman, chicago tribune, fucked up, jeff jarvis, layoffs, pandora, roger ebert, synechdote new york, terry tate, the onion, tony romo, you got yr. link bomb