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What Personalized Search Means for SEO and Your Website
By Mike Tekula (c) 2008

Looking back over the 15 or so years that SEO has been
researched, discussed and practiced, it's difficult to find any
significant period of time when it wasn't changing.

Before Google came onto the search scene around the turn of the
millennium, the search engines at the time were ranking websites
based primarily on the sheer volume and density of keywords on
the page. So ranking for "blue widgets" meant little more than
finding ways to stuff those two words into every inch of your
page possible while still maintaining at least the semblance of
a user experience. The result was a plethora of webmasters who
found creative ways to stuff keywords into every corner of their
sites. Then Google changed the game.

With PageRank, Google introduced a new way of evaluating the
relative authority of a website or page - links. PageRank, to
put it in simple terms, provided a link map of the web. The more
links pointing to a site or page, the more power or authority
that page took on. And the anchor text of a link, the words that
occur as clickable text, offered a clue as to what the linked-to
page was all about. As Google garnered more market share, links
became more valuable on the web. A whole new form of webspam was
born - free-for-all links and link selling schemes. Google has
yet to find an effective way to completely crack down on these
tactics, but in the 3rd quarter of 2007 they took some
signficant steps including directly penalizing specific websites
which were believed to be selling links for SEO benefits and
relieving "free-for-all" directories of their power to pass
PageRank altogether.

There should be no question that more big changes are coming in
SEO - only a question of "what next - and how do I prepare for
it?" Here's what's next: Personalized Search. In fact, it's
already here - more likely than not you're already seeing
personalized results when you search in Google.

Google has continually added to their impressive list of free
services. To name a handful:

  * GMail
  * Google Analytics
  * Google Reader
  * FeedBurner
  * Google Desktop
  * Google Chrome
  * Google Toolbar
  * etc.

Every one of the above services sends usage data back to Google.
Publicly, Google states that this data is "anonymous" and they
don't attach personal information to it. Where legal issues are
concerned, we have no reason to suspect they are doing
otherwise. However, we know for certain that Google is using
personal search history to skew search results that individuals
get when logged-in to their Google account - they are quite
clear on that point.

So What does Personalized Search Mean for You and Your Website?

  1. You can no longer assume that rankings as you see them are
     global. Anyone logged in while they search is potentially
     seeing a different set of results for the same keyword. You
     can log out of your Google account to search or turn off
     personalized results, but it won't do much good since every
     other user is potentially searching with personalization.

  2. If Google is incorporating usage data from other sources
     such as the Google Toolbar, Google Chrome and Google
     Analytics, it means that the user experience is going to
     play a heavier role in SEO. Keep this in mind: for Google,
     the user experience is everything. Doesn't it then make
     sense for them to incorporate available usage data when
     ranking websites?

  3. With these new data sources, Google could potentially be
     scaling back the emphasis on inbound links in their ranking
     algorithm. Links to this point have been central for Google
     rankings. With their market share continually improving and
     the unparalleled usage data that affords them we can
     reasonably expect that they'll be putting more emphasis on
     these metrics in the future.

  4. Expected traffic estimates based on rankings just became
     difficult if not impossible to achieve. In the past, traffic
     could be reasonably estimated by multiplying the available
     search usage for a given keyword by the known traffic
     percentage of a given position. The 1st position, for
     example, received some 48% of traffic for a keyword
     according to leaked AOL data from a few years back. For a
     keyword receiving 100 searches per month, you could
     reasonably estimate 48 visits per month based on a #1
     ranking for that keyword. SEO companies used that data to
     take some of the guesswork out of their campaigns. With
     personalized search these estimates are going to become far
     less accurate if not completely unreliable.

  5. Overall, this means you need to keep your eyes OFF the
     search engine rankings to a large degree. Does a #1 position
     for your Google account mean you could be somewhere back on
     page 5 for someone else? Probably not. But the point is,
     from here on out we can't be sure without extensive testing.
     Rankings have never meant much - they've always been a means
     to an end, the end being quality traffic and ultimately more
     sales, attention or whatever your website goal may be. Now,
     more than ever, high-quality traffic should be your focus.

Personalized search isn't exactly a new concept - it's been
discussed for at least a couple of years now. But we're seeing
it receive heavier emphasis lately, and the buzz is on that
Google is going to change the game again soon. Like it or not,
we're likely going to have to let go of rankings as a metric for
success.

We may be better off.
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Mike Tekula is the President and Founder of Unstuck Digital,
Inc., a Long Island SEO company (http://www.unstuckdigital.com/
search-engine-optimization-seo/) that provides clients with
effective and affordable search engine marketing strategies.
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