Getting personal with Google
Nilhan Jayasinghe, Head of Search at Spannerworks, looks at the potential implications and importance Google's personalised search services poses to your search marketing campaign.
Google personalised search was launched in June 2005 on an opt-in basis. It was introduced to provide more relevant results based on a user's search history. By analysing previous search queries, Google is able to identify the context of those queries and provide better results.
Personalised search is particularly good at queries that are short and ambiguous. For example, a query such a 'bass' (which has multiple meanings including guitar and fish) could be disambiguated by examining a user's search history. In simple terms, Google deems it likely that someone with a history of queries related to music is looking for the guitar, while someone with a history relating to angling is looking for the fish.
Why is this important for marketeers?
Until recently, users of Google still had to opt-in to have their results personalised. This service caveat didn’t prove popular, meaning usage was very low.
Now, Google personalises results by default when a user is logged into any Google service, such as GMail, GTalk, Google Homepage, Adwords, Adsense and Calender. As more and more people sign up to Google services, the number of searches that generate personalised results is expected to be significant.
The other major change introduced by Google is the way results are personalised. Now, rather than just basing results on query history, Google bookmarks and content stored on personalised home pages is also used. This provides additional data to Google that can be used to determine context and relevance.
How does this change affect you?
As more and more people have their Google results personalised there will no longer be a standard set of results served for a specific query. This means that the rankings you see could be very different to the results seen by your potential customers.
Potential Scenarios:
- Disambiguating the query and providing more relevant results should reduce the number of visitors that are 'not' looking for your product or service.
- If a searcher has your competitors bookmarked and included in their homepage, then it’s going to be harder to beat them. CRM, branding and advertising may become more important. As will simplifying the process of bookmarking your site.
- It could be easier to rank for generic ambiguous queries considering the current lack of competition.
We believe that overall user experience will be improved by Google’s new services. Spannerworks has never just concentrated on rankings, we focus on delivering customer centric search marketing campaigns that cater to diverse user wants and needs.
Article by Nilhan Jayasinghe, Head of Search, Spannerworks
