Google Direct Search
According to the recent post on Harvard Business Review blog here, Google is looking to make big changes in 2012. Just like they did in 2011, these Google changes will impact all site owners and how they manage their web properties.
The Google direct search results is something that is not being well received by most website owners. When Google “strips out” what it’s feels is most important to the user, it does so bypassing the website altogether. This selective display does not compel the user to go to the website, why bother if all the relevant data is already displayed.
The selective parsing of data to display in the SERP’s will require stronger site architecture that includes meta schema coding. This is not surprising to most, because Google purchased schema.org in 2011. They just needed the time to incorporate it within the results pages. What makes the schema.org coding so valuable is that it is a complete library of micro data formatting protocols that allows the webmaster to clearly identify site details in a way that makes sense for bots to index and understand.
One important thing not mentioned in the short paper is the acquisition of Zagat reviews by Google. Reviews will strongly play into Google’s future plans and micro data formatting is extremely relevant in getting reviews found. This has to be part of the 2012 plan too, along with SoLoMo (Social, Local, Mobile).
A bigger concern is the launch of Google encrypted, where Google does not display keyword data in analytics tools. This impacts SiteCatalyst as well as Google Analytics. An ever increasing number of searches now display as (None) or (Not Provided). When users are signed into their Google account, their search terms are withheld from all analytics tools. Google’s position is that it’s all about user privacy. Nice try but no, it’s not about privacy. It’s about more money for big G. Google advertisers (those with an Adwords account) can see the keywords used in the search. So if you pay Google, you get to see that “private” data. Google will find a way to create more revenue from this in the future. Google will not charge for the analytics tool, because this is how they get the data that they will be then able to monetize. Right now many SEO’s are watching a rapid climb in (not provided) terms, with some sites as high as 15% of the data.
Many marketers wear Google goggles and overlook the other search engines like Bing and Yahoo, because Google’s movements often represent the direction that search is moving. All the more reason to support SEO best practices that diversify search engine results.