The Side Note

As the world’s leading search engine, Google wields a lot of power. One of the things we like best about Google’s mission is they want to provide the best search experience possible, they want users to get the information they are looking to receive.

As the search engine optimization (SEO) world continues to learn about Google’s ever-changing algorithms, there are do’s and don’ts of SEO that Google rewards and penalizes. Ultimately, you should align with Google’s goal of providing the best experience for your customers and clients. The combination of fresh, relevant content, high quality links and trusted authority are still your best SEO options.

The most recent Google product updates had significant impact on SEO. Panda focused on high quality content. Sites leveraging content produced by “content farms” like about.com had their organic search rankings negatively impacted. Sites that produced relevant, high quality content were rewarded.  Penguin focused on off-site SEO, most notably links. Sites that were link spammers (the most common tactic is to reply to blogs with links in the reply) or sites that purchased links in hopes of higher rankings were negatively impacted.

We thought it would be interesting to predict some other possible projects for Google. Here is our list (with the pre-requisite animal starting with the letter P):

Puppy – As social media becomes more important in search results, preference will be given to other Google products like Google+ and YouTube. Some of the wisdom behind the importance of social media in SEO relates to my friends recommendations. If they like it, I’ll like it. If they read it, I’ll read it. These recommendations are coming from a source I trust.

Pit Bull – This project should come on the heels of Puppy. An individual’s social media reputation will play a large role in the credibility of what they share and how much they share. One of the reasons we like reading unbiased journalist reports is the credibility behind the words. How much credibility can you attach to the recommendations of FireBreath919?

Piranha – The combination of Social, Local and Mobile (SoLoMo) will be a major driver to SEO. This will incorporate a swarm of social media and location based services like: Google Places, Yelp, Groupon, Living Social and Foursquare to offer a very tailored search for mobile devices.

Porcupine – As Google Analytics keeps delivering “not provided” as a term used to search a site under the cloak of protecting privacy, this will become a revenue opportunity for Google. Are you willing to pay a monthly fee to see what people are searching to find your site? If you pay that fee, will your SEO improve because you’re providing better content or because you are simply paying that fee? This prickly project might be a longer-term, but clearly on the radar.

Let us know if you see other projects on Google’s horizon. Want to add to this list, share your thoughts here or on Facebook at Weise Communications and follow us on Twitter at @Weise_Ideas.