For the past 16 years I have a made a good living from what is commonly known as SEO. To my mind, that has always meant being able to understand the motivations behind the people doing the programming, or paying to have it done, and applying that understanding to make educated guesses about what the search engine is wanting to see in determining which URL goes to the top for specific keyword search.

Not only do you need to figure what they want now, it is also VERY helpful for longevity if you can also figure what they are going to want in the future.

You see, search marketing and online marketing for that matter, and are not a static thing. It is a fast paced, always moving, always changing industry that moves with the technological advances which come at the speed of life! With each new development comes doom and financial ruin for some but dramatic opportunities for growth for others. That "others" includes search engines as well. Not only do they change to capitalize on the opportunities and mitigate the risks of doom, they are often the catalyst for many of those changes in the first place. That is especially true of Google.

In some ways, once could say I've made my living since about 2003 from simply being able to understand what Google was doing and predict what they would do in the future, (in spite of their propaganda and media hype),  and of course being right more often than being wrong.

To illustrate the point let me reference and article I had written going back to 2003 describing my interpretation of the Basic Concepts of SEO. At the time, it was the first discourse of its kind and offered a rare insight into one way a professional SEO would approach his job. It was titled the Basic Concepts of SEO, (http://www.v7n.com/basic-concepts.php), and there was one concept that will shed some light on how I arrived at the philosophy I have towards Google and those to get it to favor my clients over the  competition.

BASIC CONCEPT OF SEO #2

Given the time and motivation, the stupidest human will win out over the smartest computer every time. 

One other concept that seems appropriate here is:

BASIC CONCEPT OF SEO #4

SEO'S do NOT manipulate search engines. I've seen SEO defined as the art of manipulating the search engines. That is false. If you set out to place a web page on the first page of results for a target keyword or phrase thinking you are manipulating the search engine, you are doomed to fail. Thinking you are forcing the search engine to do anything is a mistake. Thinking you are hiding anything from a search engine is a mistake. The only answer to top placement is recognizing what a search engine does, accepting that, assessing the potential rewards and risks and working within those confines.

The only person or persons, who can manipulate a search engine, are the persons who have access to the admin panel and/or source code of that specific search engine. If you can't get to the admin panel, you can have no effect whatsoever on what that search engines do. All you can do is construct data that you feel is most likely to fall within the parameters of the algorithm. That is NOT manipulating search engines, that is learning how search engines work and then manipulating your page. No matter how vehemently some may disagree, that is a fact! No one can "help" a search engine find what they are looking for anymore than anyone can "make" a search engine do what they want. Search engines just do what they do. They are only a machine!

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So, you can see why some of the things I do and say go against conventional wisdom. By looking forward and anticipating, your focus becomes slanted and often the slant doesn't do a lot to make you popular.

That is why I began working on a social media platform over two years ago. I knew that, like it or not, the days of Page Rank were numbered and had been since the first day they were implemented.

Page Rank relies on the technology to determine relevance by counting and establishing a score for inbound links to a specific document. BUT technology can't figure a truly effective way to mitigate and evaluate human nature. Once Google gained prominence there was a value associated with inbound links and with that came manipulation of the process motivated by greed, one of the most common of human traits.

However, being geeks of an unprecedented caliber, the founders of Google refused to accept that human beings were capable of out smarting technology and so began the link wars of the mid 2000's. One goofy 'fix" after another came along with them thinking they had the power to control the behavior of humans. We had the SearchKing saga with thousands of sites demolished in the attempt to teach the world a lesson! But within months and in the face of such a "don't be evil" service to the greater good, dozens if link brokers, link farmers and link hackers sprung up all offering their services. Usually by advertising on Adwords!

Then along comes a 20 something year old college kid basically wanting to exact revenge on his ex girlfriend for rejecting him, and he simply throws up a pretty simple platform that empowers people to just talk to each other in very human manner and he breaks all the record setting numbers of the heretofore self titled, smartest company on the planet!  With Google's colossal ego, do you really think that went un-noticed??

Their refusal to accept getting bitch slapped in the marketplace led to several pretty spectacular failures with their own attempts to enter into social media by again believing the technology was the primary factor as opposed to accepting that HUMANS are the reason for tech to exist in the first place. Knol, Wave, Buzz to name just a few embarrassments while Facebook continued to grow in size and revenues.

Finally it seems they are forced to accept that humans talking to other humans really are far more relevant than millions even billions of bullshit links, most funded by Adsense!

In about 2005 they had begun, (still believing that technology was the dominant factor in determining relevancy), collecting, storing and analyzing data on an individual basis. AAAALLLLLLL data! They wanted to know EVERYTHING about EVERYBODY! The official reason for the greatest invasion of personal privacy in the history of mankind was to improve the user's experience. BULLSHIT!

They are doing it for the same reason every publicly owned corporation does anything. MONEY! They figured out that if they could deliver an ad that was based on a consumer known interests as determined by their searches, visited sites and CONVERSATIONS, the click thru rate went through the roof. That meant charging a premium on the already inflated rates being charged for PPC and subscription based ads.  

But there was a problem with the way most comments across the web were programmed, and they weren't able to easily index those comments. Comments are vital because NOTHING is more relevant than you and I talking about something we both share an interest in, especially if one of us is known for possessing knowledge of a specific topic. Now Google has the power to understand what expertise you may have on a given topic but they struggled with what that expert was saying to whom.

Do you see the power of knowing that data? If I ask you who is good at hosting my site and before you can tell me, an ad pops in front of my face for hosting ESPECIALLY if you can be relatively certain of what the person I'm asking is going to say, what is worth to an advertiser in the hosting business???

THAT IS WHY SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IS MOTIVATING GOOGLE TO CHANGE THE WAY IT WORKS!

So, now this announcement comes last week.

Say what? Google now indexing Facebook comments

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57318871-93/say-what-google-now-indexing-facebook-comments/

A Google search for your name may reveal your comments. Since your Facebook account is tied to your (presumably) real name, anyone googling you may stumble upon your political, religious, or general views expressed in comments you've left across the Web. Consider this when leaving comments using the Facebook Comments platform.

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BINGO! That is why they so desperately wanted those comments. What do you think makes up a demographic? That term used to sell ads at a higher price. Your religious, political and general views expressed in comments!! THAT is true relevance!

Of course this will be a boon to the SEO industry as I'm sure this will be seen as links and we can expect another 20 billion or so documents that have NO value to the general welfare whatsoever cluttering up even more of the web. BUT the thing those poor, misguided SEO's are missing is that it wont matter if you write a bot to auto-submit comments because Google already knows who sends out the bots and where they point. That's why Google wasn't dissuaded in the least at the threat of an onslaught of spam comments. Those are there already and with personalization, no one cares much about organic placement except the guy selling them. What Google is looking for is a better way to show more relevant ads to specific people as opposed to who is on top of search result in some generic list. There is no longer any such things as a generic, organic list. Why not?

Because

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING HAS CHANGED THE WAY GOOGLE WORKS 

Peach Y'all 

Bob Massa, CEO Techndu Internet Services, Pvt Ltd

Proud Parent of Blikini - the Social Media SEO Management Machine  

       Social Media SEO, Marketing, Metrics and Management