How does the power of Google affect your business? And how can we know what Google ‘likes’?
If you are a marketer or business owner, Google is likely to affect your life even more than it does the average person. Think of the number of times you have wondered whether your web content is Google-friendly enough, or been told you need to add more, relevant content on your site because it will be ‘good for SEO/Google’.
But as a recent BBC Radio 4 documentary and accompanying article confirm, knowing what Google ‘likes’ can be difficult, not least because its search engine algorithms constantly change. With over 90% of the search engine market, Google is all-powerful but how it actually works remains essentially mysterious.
In Six Searches that show the Power of Google, BBC Technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones asks whether Google’s ever-mutating search algorithms have too much power. His searches includes a business, an individual, a travel destination and postings on ‘unprofessional hair’ which have proved controversial. He also asks whether Google has the power to affect the result of an election.
In broad terms, Google asserted that, as a search engine, their main aim is to reflect and if possible anticipate what the searcher is looking for, and provide it.
Rory’s conclusion: “the information delivered to me and countless millions around the world is now determined by algorithms which even Google’s engineers don’t fully understand. And that makes me just a little uneasy.”
As direct and digital marketing and Website SEO consultants, this is interesting stuff which chimes with our day to day experience of Google: the seemingly inexplicable movements in ranking, the vagaries of Google Places, which Google’s own spokesperson seemed unable to explain. (He seemed to imply that businesses featured on the coveted Google Places map of local businesses were in effect a random choice – could that really be true? If it is, is it fair?)
What has been your experience – as a business, as a fellow marketer … as an individual? Is Google benign or do we have reason to be uneasy about its power?
For the full story see Six Searches that Show the Power of Google from the BBC Magazine or listen to the BBC Radio 4 documentary The Force of Google.
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