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December 07, 2008
Personalization of Search Video with Mike Marshall
Are you prepared for the future SEO challenges posed By the Personalization of Search?"
By John Alexander
There are 3 types of responses that we hear expressed from the professional SEO community with respect to how the personalization of search will affect the average business owner's profitability and traffic. In just a minute, I'll let you watch a video of Michael Marshall explaining these 3 responses.
But if you are wondering what all of the controversy over the issue of personalization is about, let's touch on that for a moment first.
Most of the major search engines have been gravitating towards providing a much more user friendly experience by offering enhanced personalization which can be switched on or off. The result of switching it on is that the search engine begins to gather data about the type of information you search for over time and then it has the effect of "personalizes" the search results by delivering up the most pertinent data based on an individuals search preferences.
The advantage or benefit is geared toward the benefit of the user. Over time the specific search engine seems to be able to shuffle through search results and quickly deliver the best information based on the independent searcher's interests. Not only that, but the results are shuffled based on each users interests even if 3 or 4 people are all searching on the same machine.
What this means is that the aspect of traditional "rankings" or where a Web page shows up in the results will totally depend on who is doing the search. The same search for the exact same keyword phrase, will no longer produce the same exact results to different searchers because results will be shuffled and delivered up according to each searcher's interests. Much of how you performed SEO and traditional rank checking will become obsolete since over time, you can no longer assume every user sees the same results for a specific search term. In fact as personalization becomes more widely adopted, the traditional forms of rank checking will eventually become meaningless. In the future, traditional SEO software tools for rank checking will no longer help you determine how well you are doing or what percentage of your audience is even seeing your page.
What is your reaction to the personalization of search?
What are other people saying about the "personalization of search" and it's implications to traffic and business.
Mike Moran is an IBM Distinguished Engineer, expert on Internet marketing, and the author of Search Engine Marketing, Inc., the best-selling book on search marketing.
Mike Moran has stated that:
"Personalization of search, is the biggest change to come to search marketing since pay-per-click."
SEO educator Mike Marshall, with Search Engine Academy also recently addressed the topic explaining some of the most common perceptions that are being reflected about the changes to come. Watch this short video of SEO educator Michael Marshall as he explains the 3 most common responses from people about the impact personalization will have on SEO for the future.
Watch the Video of Michael Marshall here
Posted by John at December 7, 2008 09:48 AM