The Future of Search & Google
For the last few years we’ve been typing key words and key phases into Google to find what we want, but now big changes are on the way and many of them should worry us.
The fundamental cause is a Year Long revamping of Google, from it’s social media effort on Google+ to it’s privacy policy – Google is continuing change like no company has ever done before. I’ve already questions Google’s ‘Do No Evil’ Mantra and found it wanting, but more is on the way and we are only learning about it incrementally.
Google has two fundamental issues; Advertising, almost all of it’s 37billion dollar income comes from Advertising and secondly it’s worried by the likes of Facebook and Apple’s Siri Search for mobile. We also know that Google likes our data is is collecting it like fury.
So what’s the end game? Ultimately Google is a place we visit, find what we want and move on. No more says Google, what they want is a place we visit and find out what we want without leaving. Now that’s a big difference.
Google knows our websites, but now following a recent update it wants to start showing us answers. If we want to know the highest peak in Britain – why should Google send us to the Ben Nevis website – why doesn’t it just give us the answer? In the future it will.
I don’t think we should underestimate Google in this area – what it means for us website owners is when people search for our products – they will now have to battle through Google’s own database of answers. If you compare the old Google with the new one, already our websites are listed in a far smaller corner near the bottom as Google offer us, images, maps, videos, news and of course advertising.
The bottom line is that the impact we are able to make on Google is diminishing all the time. Frustrating as that is, it remains the case, and Google in their quest to keep Facebook at bay don’t seem to mind. And Google also knows that people will continue to use them if they provide the answers to peoples search queries. People don’t actually mind what website they are looking at so long as it is trustworthy and gives them the answers they want.
Repercussions:
There are going to be two huge repercussions in my view
- People will use search less, as soon as people find a supplier for their need they will be less likely to deviate. If you fly EasyJet – you’ll be less likely to look for alternatives because it will be harder to find.
If Google’s trying to tell you the distance between London and Rome – when you want the cheapest flight you can get – you can see things are going to get tricky. In fact we may even find Google does deals with the airlines to sell the flights direct to you.
In effect Google wants just one massive website all of it’s own.
- You need to start taking social media seriously – if you want to continue to be found it just going to get harder and harder on Google as your listing gets squashed further into a small corner.
Instead the strategy I have advocated for a while now is that your website should contain the bare bones facts about your business – and then you should go to where your customers are. On Facebook. If you’re and eCommerce website you need to get listed with Amazon – if you’re services based – make use of LinkedIn, if you’re local – get onto your local Blogs and so.
Pick your advertising channel by all means – but the time will come when your website will be of significantly less importance as these giant companies try to take over the Internet.