The Search Engine Optimizing Industry

One such tool is the “Web History” utility that is now available to all users of Google Search. Using this tool, Google will collect information about the sites you visit and use it to generate a better response to your queries. Some of the key points of the utility are:
1) The ability to view and manage your web activity – search across the full text of the pages you’ve visited, including Google Searches, web pages, images and news stories.
2) Get search results that are more personalized and based on the things you’ve searched for on Google and the sites you’ve visited.
3) Get reports on your trends and web activity – how many searches did you conduct and at what time of the day. Which sites do you frequent the most?
You can read more about the capabilities and features of Web History at: www.google.com/psearch .
How will Web History affect the Search Engine industry?
It will help Google provide you with results that you want to see the most, and, when combined with another tool in the beta process, will help discard items that you are not interested in seeing in your search results.
Want to try an experiment?
Break out your google goggles and let’s get started! Begin by creating a user account with Google. Then turn Web History on for a week or so, and chase your tail looking at keywords that are specific to the ranking of your website or a site you are maintaining. Check several times a day, closing and relaunching your browser each time you check. Eventually you are going to see a message near the top of the window that the results of your search are being influenced by… you guessed it… Web History. Pay attention to where your site is ranking with Web History turned on.
Now, after a week of allowing “Web History” to collect some information… go to your google account and turn it off, and check your page positions on Google for the same Keywords? Did you see any difference? You betcha! Google is watching you and capturing your behavior and they are manipulating your search results to match your expectations and what they perceive is your preference based on the “experiences” they have collected from you. If Web History perceives that Blue Donuts by a particular manufacturer are important to you in the majority of your searches, they will bubble to the top of the page while other Blue Donuts by different manufactures will sink lower and lower.
Is it the end of the Search Engine Optimizing Industry?
Probably not, factors that will account for the appearance of one site’s links above another may not be completely limited to the users interaction and preference in the future. Other traditional factors such as content and page ranking may continue to play a part in getting the position on the page ahead of some of the clients perceived preferences, in addition to other new developments currently underway.
Does it end here?
I for one don’t think so. There’s at least two more prominent areas where Google can capture user preferences and then modify the result set to meet their expectations, and they are actively testing or running programs to do exactly that right now. I’ll cover the second area in my next article. “There’s Room for 10″.
This is my first online article and I’d like to thank those that have taken the time to read it. I hope you will find this useful and that it might stimulate some additional discussion on the subject material covered.