Will Google's real-time search destroy SEO (and increase value of type-in traffic)

[BocaVision]

Advent of real-time search -- benefit for search engine users -- but hurtful for SEO experts --

expectation of searching public is to have realtime intel -- thus, Google's move toward temporal results --

Will the real time stream drown SEO?

If yes, will this change make type-in traffic even more attractive to marketers looking to avoid SEO turbulence?

Will Google's real-time search destroy SEO? - iMediaConnection.com

Will Google's real-time search destroy SEO?

By Rich Cherecwich

Google took the plunge into the world of real-time search earlier this week when it unveiled a "latest news" ticker on its search results pages that aggregates Facebook status updates and tweets moments after publication.

The move is great for consumers hungry for up-to-date news, but it could be bad for SEOs who work hard to push websites to the top of the search engine results. It has the potential to be so disastrous, in fact, that Marty Weintraub, CEO of SEO firm AimClear, said SEOs are "pretty much screwed," MediaPost reports.

Real-time results could only confuse the average consumer and make the concept of SEO even more confusing for marketers who are already flummoxed, according to Weintraub. The real-time results appear at the very top of a results page, which is also the most coveted spot for every online marketer.

When consumers search for a particular brand, there's a chance that the brand's competition will show up in the real-time results. Visiting the competition's website in turn leads Google to create personalized search results for that consumer, meaning that the competitor's page always pops up in their results -- essentially undoing any SEO efforts.

How then can publishers and marketers work around the issue? Weintraub suggests that measuring traffic and site conversations will be the best way to evaluate organic listings. "If organic traffic increases on a page for a specific keyword, then it's reasonable to assume that page's ranking in the 'average' Google result has improved," he said.

 

[labrocca]

This is probably going to be closely tuned with Wave imho. Also forums might benefit greatly from real-time search as their content is updated more frequently than blogs.

 

[kathirvel]

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Advent of real-time search -- benefit for search engine users -- but hurtful for SEO experts --

expectation of searching public is to have realtime intel -- thus, Google's move toward temporal results --

Will the real time stream drown SEO?

If yes, will this change make type-in traffic even more attractive to marketers looking to avoid SEO turbulence?

Will Google's real-time search destroy SEO? - iMediaConnection.com

 

[exsedo]

I think the basic seo strategy will remain the same ie. Quality content, user friendliness, backlinks etc, but with the rollout of customized search, we may see changes in certain seo practices.

 

[enlytend]

It won't "destroy seo", but it will change the game - again.

Google's defaulting to personalized search in the results already raises some new considerations.

(PS - Yahoo announced they're going to do it too. Personally, from a search user standpoint, I don't like it - I think it just adds garbage and noise to the results!)

 

[labrocca]

I hope that this will make gaming SEO harder. Nothing worse imho than black hat SEO experts wrecking and skewing results. Also I find that 90% of the SEO experts are charlatans. They don't know squat about SEO.

 

[enlytend]

Also I find that 90% of the SEO experts are charlatans. They don't know squat about SEO.

Now, now - it depends on how you define "experts" - there are a few dozen real experts and there are tens of thousands of self-proclaimed experts :D. But I agree - at least 50% of the self-proclaimed experts still think it's about setting the keywords metatag, stuffing your keywords in the page title and submitting your site to 5000 worthless directories.

.

I really DO hate Google's implementation of it - I'm not a big fan of scrollers to begin with and don't see the point in a little scrolling box of (in most cases) useless chatter in my search results. Makes the positions above that box (the number of which seem to vary from search to search) more valuable (as more of the others get pushed below the fold), but I'm not entirely convinced that having the spot right below it would be a bad thing (downward scroll leading visitors eyes to that result? Hmmm...)

Anyway, it just will lead to new ways to game it -

 

[~ The 34 Year Buzz!!]

I hope that this will make gaming SEO harder. Nothing worse imho than black hat SEO experts wrecking and skewing results. Also I find that 90% of the SEO experts are charlatans. They don't know squat about SEO.

I'll agree there + ...SEO tends to = SPAM way to often. For example:

Here is the developer of a popular anti-spam mod for Wordpress, and his own blog gets:
3431 spam comments blocked out of 674 human comments. 83.58% of your comments are spam! -source

 

[Szise]

No, will not replace SEO, the live search result are something different. Ranking in search engines will be harder.

 

[hollywood]

have to agree with Szise, SEO will live on despite the real time search results

 

[benzdorf]

Yeap, A big chuck of the quote unquote; SEO meisterZ; are charltonZ; and regardless SEO will live on in one capasity or another, thatZ 4 sure!

 

[Anu Smith]

The quality content of seo is better, so I don't think it would get much affected. But yes to sme extent it can be effected.