End of the Hippie Dream: did business break The Web?

 
Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a scientist and something of an idealist. Oh yes: and he invented The World Wide Web. I wonder what it says in his passport under ‘Occupation’…

In my book that's about as cool as having been in The Beatles. However I'm certain Sir Tim is worth less than Sir Paul (even without an expensive ex-wife). You see he has deliberately chosen not to exploit his invention for personal gain. Which (many would say) is also pretty cool.

When Mr B-L was working at CERN in 1989-90 he wrote a paper helpfully entitled ‘Information Management - a proposal’ which contained the breakthrough idea of combining the internet (a networked collection of computers scattered across the world) with the hypertext link; allowing one computer to directly (and simply) access information on another. He wrote his initial proposal in March 1989, and in 1990, with the help of Robert Cailliau, produced a revision which was accepted by his then manager, Mike Sendall. The first 'Web Site' was built at CERN, was put on line on 6 August 1991 and the rest is history.

The vision embraced by TB-L, following the vision of earlier internet evangelists including John Perry Barlow, lyricist of The Grateful Dead (and if they weren't hippies then who was?) was of a great leveller; an empowering tool that allowed anyone to be a publisher, a record company or a bank. Almost at a stroke, the power to distribute information was taken out of the hands of the privileged few and handed to the many. This change has been described as the biggest transformation of society since the Gutenberg Bible, printed by Johannes Gutenberg circa 1455 and heralding the arrival of the Printing Press (btw why does no-one ever credit William Caxton these days?)

However in recent years, Sir Tim and other early web pioneers have expressed concerns about the way business has colonized the web and also about growing threats to our individual privacy posed by the sheer amount of personal information held by Google, Facebook, Amazon et al.

“We've noticed that people who browsed X..”

pleaserobme.com highlights the very real issue of how people thoughtlessly give away too much personal information online - especially on social networks.

But this doesn’t mean the web's become 'evil'. Sure, bad things happen online but generally they are caused by bad people. To blame the web is tantamount to shooting the messenger.  Yes terrorist groups have used email to organise, but so have disaster relief agencies. For all its faults, there has never been anything that has so enabled, empowered and connected the global population; even though only c.25% of the world is currently online (remember that!). And it’s good that people are concerned. In most wired countries there is data protection legislation in place and healthy debates about privacy and 'the cost of free' .

So did business break the web? No: not yet. And we don't have to let it. The web will bring benefits to millions more people in the months, years and decades to come which should far outweigh the costs (cyber-crime, loss of privacy, internet addiction etc). Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, created a product which has made shopping a whole lot easier and more enjoyable for millions of people. Facebook has 300 million users which would make it the 'third largest country in the world' (ahead of the US). These people choose to 'talk' to each other and it's free. Mark Zuckerberg doesn't force people to connect (OK so maybe he encourages them just a bit...).

Throughout history, the founders of successful businesses have, generally speaking, made a lot of money. The web can be a force for good which includes good business and if people like Bill Gates of Microsoft make more money out of it than they need, they can always choose to give it to Charity. (But that's a whole 'nother Blog post...).

So Sir Tim: thanks for the wonderful gift you have given us; and please don't worry. We'll do our best to use it responsibly (won't we?)

How was it for you? The joy of UX

Google is planning and currently beta testing some design/ layout changes, both on the Home page and the Search Results page to include a new left-hand navigation pane. Google is known for making such changes very rarely and when it does, for researching them very painstakingly. Which raises the question: isn't agonizing about miniscule changes in logos, column width and colours all a bit unnecessary? After all, Google has a strong brand and isn’t it the reliability of its search results that really matters?

Well, in a word, “No”. We’re talking about the User Experience (or UX) here (more specifically web usability) which is just as crucial for Google as for any other website. Indeed, arguably more so, since Google has such a massive volume of traffic. And as Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said “disloyalty is only one click away”. Bing and Yahoo! are ready to welcome anyone who has a sub-optimal experience and fancies a change of search engine. I would argue that the phenomenal success of the Google search engine owes much to how simple it is to use. (Indeed Google has had less success with more complex, less intuitive products: e.g. Google Radio and maybe Google Wave?)

Indeed Google search is not even particularly comprehensive. Michael K Bergman, an American academic and entrepreneur, published a paper on the ‘deep web’ in 2001 that is still regularly quoted. "The deep web is currently 400 to 550 times larger than the commonly defined world wide web," he wrote. "The deep web is the fastest growing category of new information on the internet …internet searches are searching only 0.03% … of the [total web] pages available."

Of course this isn’t the point. Google works. And the company pays a massive amount of attention to UX. Their team of UX experts, headed by Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience, goes to great lengths to keep the Google search experience in tune with users' changing wants and needs, including what they see on their screen and how they interact with it. I believe this has played a big part in the Google search engine's rise to dominance. Granted, most people find it gives acceptable results but most of all, it is quick and easy to use. Most searchers find what they want fast i.e. they get a good experience. Google wisely adjusts the user interface with great care and only after careful consideration.

The world-renowned UX Guru Jakob Nielsen has said “People are on the Web not to enjoy your Web design, but to get something done.” Not surprisingly, he has been strongly criticized by the design community for downplaying the importance of aesthetics, particularly in situations where the creator of the web content is seeking to persuade, influence or entertain rather than purely facilitating. Few would disagree with the argument that different factors come into play when one considers the optimum UX in browsing a particular area of an online store to find suitable gift ideas, compared with what is required at the checkout. Similarly compare an online photo gallery with an online banking site. The need, of course, is to understand the user and their requirements at the time they are using each part of the site; this is UX (web usability) research and design: a fascinating meeting of technology and human psychology.

UX has become big business and rightly so. There are now companies who specialize in 'eye tracking' to optimize website usability. To ensure a site is accessible and easy to use, they look at the site through the user’s eyes - literally. Under laboratory conditions, site owners can observe directly where the user looks for information, what elements are missed, and where the user is confused. 'Point-of-gaze' metrics combined with 'measures of mental effort' can highlight key usability areas that need attention. We can study how users click and where they look and in what sequence. Granted, we don't know exactly what they're thinking and feeling (yet) but it's a good start in our mission to deliver the best possible UX.

Site owners are continuously competing against distractions (including ads and other websites) in their attempts to engage and hold the attention of the user. The slightest irritation or unwelcome surprise can produce frustration and cause the user to click away/ leave the site. Improved web design has raised the bar compared with the ‘brochure sites’ of 10 years ago. Today’s users expect good usability. They are not, in general, fascinated and impressed by website design or Flash animation. They are demanding and impatient. Thus sites should be designed and tested for speed of loading and ease of navigation on equipment and with connection speeds typically experienced by the site’s core user group (a factor which the design and build agency, with its high-end machines, has been known to neglect!).

Given ‘Content is King’, one can commit regicide by neglecting UX considerations. Yet even in these days of widespread broadband, the user doesn’t always experience a freely flowing interaction. There are far too many sites with good content that are unnecessarily frustrating to use. And too many major companies that (re)launch websites without adequate testing. Why would they do that?

Smart companies understand the importance of UX and devote appropriate time and resources to optimizing their user’s interaction (a) with their site and (b) looking at the bigger picture (including all touchpoints) with their brand. Apple certainly knows a thing or two about Total User Experience design, as demonstrated by the attention it pays to packaging, materials and colours as key elements of product design.

I'm not sure exactly when we’ll all get to use the new Google interface. But when we do, I'm sure it will be a good experience.

PPC: how much will you pay per click? It's all about Quality.

If you know all about Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) you might want to sit this post out (or better, please read and comment; this is Web 2.0 after all.)

Today's big news in the world of tech/digital marketing is the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal, which sees Microsoft become Yahoo's search provider while Yahoo's sales team will sell advertising on behalf of both companies. This will, subject to regulatory approval, create a serious rival to Google in the world of search and specifically in the world of PPC.

A random sample of advertised jobs from this week’s UK (digital) marketing press (online and offline) includes the following:

Head of Search Marketing - Top 5 Media Agency
This is a senior management role for a talented SEM professional. It's one at a top 5 media agency, and is responsible for one of the biggest spending Search accounts in the UK. With a focus on PPC, you will also be able to devise strategy across all SEM activity and provide continuity and integration. For this a deep knowledge of Search media will be required, along with vast experience (7 years plus), preferably agency side.

PPC Account Manager - Top Digital Agency
A rare opportunity to join what is widely regarded as the best digital media agency in the UK has arisen - and as such we require a skilled search expert (PPC) to work in an AM role with financial & automotive clients. You will need to have at least 2 years working in a search-focussed role, preferably within a media or search agency working on big budget clients, managing their PPC campaigns on a daily basis.

PPC Manager - Integrated Agency
You will manage all elements of Paid Search, with an objective of enhancing our current client's marketing campaigns to encourage more PPC spend and gain new business for the agency. Responsibilities: Taking campaign briefings from clients Producing paid-search strategy and integrating it with other media activity. Preparation of copy strategy Building of PPC campaigns in Excel. Management of the trafficing process. Ongoing analysis of campaign performance.

(btw if you successfully apply for any of these jobs, you owe me a drink at the next Digital Lounge event in London. Cheers.)

None of these jobs existed ten years ago. It is estimated that PPC now accounts for 60% of total online spend (Revolution, July 2009).

So where did this PPC business spring from? I thought it might be interesting and useful to define exactly what were talking about, to summarize how we got where we are today and then speculate as to what might happen next.

• What is PPC?

To clarify: we are not talking about natural (organic) search (=Search Engine Optimization=SEO) i.e. making our website easy to find by Google/ Yahoo/ Bing. We are talking about paying for a ‘sponsored link’ i.e. a short (normally) text ad looking like a traditional classified ad in a newspaper except it can be clicked on. On the Google results page, it appears either above the search results or down the right hand side, in the section marked 'sponsored links'. When it is clicked on, you (the advertiser) pay Google for each clickthrough to your site.

Google AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for both text and banner ads. (with local, national, and international distribution). Google's text advertisements are short, consisting of one title line plus two content text lines. Image ads can be in one of several different Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) defined standard sizes.

So: you’re effectively buying space, but in a different way from the old offline newspaper/ magazine model. For each keyword you select (which you judge to be relevant to your website), exactly where your ad appears depends on the result of an auction, in which all qualifying ads compete for the best places on the Google results page/s. (The amount that you have ‘bid’ is the maximum you are prepared to pay, per click, to get your ad displayed in the best possible position). And you pay £cost per click x number of clicks i.e. you literally PAY PER CLICK. (you can set a maximum total payment after which your ad will not be displayed - or if it is, you won’t pay).

• How exactly does it work?

Google wants:

(a) The user to have the best possible experience. If the user searches for a given keyword (a single word or phrase) they expect to see a series of results, the natural listings and the sponsored links (= paid-for ads), each of which indicates exactly what they will get when they click on it. Followed, after a click, by a website delivering EXACTLY what they are looking for. In this scenario, the user is happy and Google remains their automatic choice for future searches. So Google is happy.

(b) To make money. Google has created this amazingly complex and successful search engine which currently dominates the web and has become synonymous with search, which is itself growing as more and more users spend more and more time online, searching for more and more information, products and services. As a commercial company, Google expects a reward; it has done extremely well out of selling PPC advertising and intends to continue to do so. Indeed Google makes c.95% of its revenues from Search. (i.e. selling ad space on its results pages, and also on Blogs and Google mail/ Gmail). This helps to fund its various other ventures (eg.Google Wave, Maps, Street View, Latitude, YouTube, Android, Chrome, +++) some of which are currently net costs to the organisation i.e. ‘awaiting monetization’…

Google is adamant that (b) doesn’t get in the way of (a).

“We have a fundamental philosophy with which we push these projects-we really want to improve life for people.”

Sergey Brin, co-founder, Google.


But exactly what factors influence where AdWords places your ad?. Where your ad appears and how much you end up paying depends on the result of what has been called a “Generalized second-price auction”. Let’s have a look at the AdWords auction in detail.
Every time a user does a search, the auction is conducted and competing ads allocated to appropriate spots, all before the user sees the results pages. (Yeah. Amazing, I know.)

Your ad will be at the top or down the right-hand-side of the search results.
Google is trying to deliver the best experience for users so they want your site to be relevant to users who are attracted by your ad; they will tend to promote you in position (i.e. higher up) if they believe this is the case.

Crudely: Position = winning bid amount* x quality score#

*How much you bid per click. (the more you are prepared to pay, the higher position your ad will be shown in, starting with the top of results and working down the right hand side from page 1 and then onto the subsequent pages of results.)

#QUALITY SCORE: How relevant/ useful Google perceives your ad/ your site to be.

Note Google doesn't fully reveal how QS is calculated; expert commentators believe QS consists of:
• Historical click-through rate of this ad (and your others, if any!)
• Ad Copy Relevance (to the keyword i.e. how well the ad matches the user’s query)
• Landing Page Quality (loading time, relevant and original content and ease of the navigation of your site).
Note you can specify that you only want traffic from particular countries (e.g. those visiting the .fr or .co.uk or .de site/s) and/ or day/ time of day.

So working on improving your ‘Google quality score’ means you will pay less per click for better positions (getting you cheaper clickthroughs, from people who are specifically looking for your product/ service, which must be good business). Effectively Google is rewarding you for being a good advertiser, which some might find patronising. But hey, remember these guys have 65%+ of all search traffic(!) which some might also say explains a certain bullishness, sometimes bordering on arrogance…

Owing to the complexity of AdWords and other PPC products and the amount of money at stake, some advertisers hire a consultant or specialist agency to manage their PPC campaigns. (see job ads above). Indeed a whole industry has sprung up based on offering PPC expert advice. There are also various proprietary software products assisting with PPC Campaign Management, Bid Optimizing, Reporting and Analytics.

• History of PPC

In February 1998 Jeffrey Brewer of Goto.com, a 25-employee startup company (later Overture, now part of Yahoo!), presented a PPC search engine concept to the TED conference in California. Credit for the concept is generally given to the Idealab and Goto.com founder, Bill Gross (who allegedly ‘borrowed’ it from Yellow Pages).
Google started search engine advertising in December 1999. In October 2000 the AdWords system was introduced, allowing advertisers to create text ads for placement on the Google search engine. However, AdWords only introduced PPC in 2002; until then, ads were charged at ‘cost-per-thousand impressions’. Yahoo advertisements have been PPC-based since their introduction in 1998. So PPC is still a young industry.

• What’s going to happen?

Historically, Google hasn’t always got everything right. In November 2006, Google bought privately held YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock and still shows few signs of monetizing it. Remember Google Click-to-Call? It was a service provided by Google which allowed users to call advertisers from Google search results pages. Users entered their phone number, Google called them back and connected them to the advertiser, with call charges paid by Google. It was discontinued in 2007. There are ongoing challenges to Google in the areas of privacy/ consumer data retention. Street View has attracted significant opposition in this regard.

Google has, however carved out a massively powerful position in the world of search. Google can’t afford to lose this dominance; its business model is currently largely dependent on it. Indeed AdWords is Google's flagship advertising product and main source of revenue (estimated at $21 billion in 2008). We may be assured that Messrs Schmidt, Page and Brin (the triumvirate running the company) are very interested in how well AdWords is doing.

Equally Microsoft will not accept its current small share of the lucrative search market. Its new search engine, Bing, and the much vaunted deal with Yahoo! (acquisition of the Yahoo! Search business would give Microsoft almost 30% of the US Search market) are evidence that Microsoft is going to take the fight to Google. Of course search advertising revenues depend primarily on where the users are searching and here Google currently has a position of massive strength. Even if Bing is a superior product (i.e. a true ‘discovery engine’) Google has strong user loyalty and inertia; suggesting that Bing needs to deliver a SIGNIFICANTLY better user experience to gain trial and change searchers’ habits.

Meanwhile Google is, understandably, not sitting idly by while Bing attacks its market share (after all “disloyalty is only one click away” as Google CEO Eric Schmidt is fond of saying). Google Squared is a response to the launch of Bing; Wolfram Alpha is positioning itself as ‘a computational knowledge engine that draws on multiple sources to answer user queries directly’ and Ask.com has rebranded itself (again). People are suggesting that Twitter's increasing use for ‘real time search’ is a threat to the search engines. Then there’s mobile search with its unique requirements and (currently) restrictions. Much is at stake here. Exciting times.

As with most things in digital marketing, we can measure what’s giving us best results and work to improve our overall ROI. You (or your PPC agency) should be asking: how much are we paying per click against which keyword and what do those clickers then go on to do i.e. how much is the click actually worth to us, the advertiser? Certain keywords will be very popular, (e.g. ‘lowest cost mobile phones’) so that bids required to get your ads shown in high ranking positions will need to be high. Maybe you can do better by bidding on niche keywords? What about your ad copy? Is it persuasive, descriptive and relevant to your site? And what happens after they click through? Test various landing pages, tracking the results. Measure and optimise your PPC ads. Continuous evaluation and improvement should be the strategy. TEST, TEST and TEST!

So if your boss asks you “how much do we pay per click?” the answer should probably be something like: “much less than we would be spending if we weren’t watching the metrics so closely and optimising every aspect of our campaigns so carefully, but still more than I would like.”

PPC will keep evolving. Specifically everyone involved with PPC should be watching Bing and the new Microsoft search partnership with Yahoo. Although the market shares of the various competing search engines are certain to change, the discipline of Pay per Click Advertising looks set to grow in importance within the world of digital marketing.

And oh yes; remember to work on that Quality Score...

SEO: "seek, and ye shall find." (Luke 11)

Anyone remember WebCrawler? Infoseek? HotBot? AltaVista? Lycos? As long as we’ve had search engines, we’ve had SEO (= search engine optimisation). And as Microsoft announces a UK roadshow to launch its new search platform, Bing, as a serious rival to Google, SEO is firmly established as part of the digital marketing landscape.

Indeed SEO or 'natural search' is a whole separate industry these days. It can be defined as: helping site owners to optimise their ranking in Google and other search engines when users search by certain relevant “keywords”.

The evolving role of the practice of SEO is currently a hot topic in digital marketing circles. Some are even suggesting its days are numbered as the search engines (especially Google) get wise to sharp practices to manipulate rankings.

To clarify: we are not talking here about paid search (= pay per click) e.g. Google AdWords, where one ‘buys’ keywords (via a bidding process) and Google displays one’s clickable text-only ad as a sponsored link in the Google Results page. (see the results at the top and right hand side of the Google Results Page.) The 'opposite' of paid search is organic or natural search which is the subject of this post.

Why does SEO matter? Look at the facts: 90% of all web sessions start with a search engine (Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, Ask Jeeves etc.) This figure has been increasing year on year as more and more people give up on bookmarking sites (far less actually remembering urls!) and rely on Google to find the site for them. So if you have a website, and someone 'Googles' the thing you sell, you want to appear (or be ‘ranked’) near the top of the listings and certainly on the first page. If you are not, people may never find your site and you won’t be very successful. In fact you risk being invisible, lonely and broke (to misquote Cory Doctorow). Received wisdom is that 62% of searchers click on a result within the first page of results, and approx 28% of all searchers click on results within page 2 or 3. Readers of a mathematical bent will notice that this leaves only 10% i.e. hardly anyone looks beyond page 3. (This raises the question: how many pages of search results do users really require? - which could be the topic of another blog post or indeed a session at an SEO conference!)

One more fact: Google handles between 75% and 86% (UK: Hitwise April 2009) of all search traffic depending on which country you look at; so for the purposes of this post when we say “Google” we mean “Search Engine”. Unhealthy? Maybe, but realistic currently.

Suppose I have a website which sells Golf equipment. Keywords of interest to me might be: Golf equipment, Golf gear, Golf accessories, Golf clubs, Golf bags, Golf clothes, Golf apparel etc etc.

I might wish to consider optimising my site for any or all of these “keywords” (which are often than not more than one actual word). One can achieve high rankings more easily for niche keywords: If you search Google for “Golf Equipment” you will get about 37,700,000 results. (in 0.25 seconds!) At 10 results per page that gives us approx 3,770,000 pages of results. If however one lives in the West Midlands of England and is looking for a professional to stuff your dead cat, and you search by “Taxidermists in Wolverhampton” one gets only 16,900 results but this is still 1,690 pages. Only a few sites make it onto page 1 and many excellent sites languish invisibly on page 500+.

So SEO is, these days, a major digital marketing discipline; but is it legitimate? i.e. both ethical and good business?

Let’s just have a look at the agendas of the various parties involved:

• Google: wants its search engine to be good at its job; i.e. it wants as many users as possible to have the best possible experience; i.e. to find a selection of suitable sites as quickly and as painlessly as possible. It particularly wants to direct users to site/s with well written and presented content that best deliver what they were looking for; in pursuit of this it tries to interpret their intention (which is not always exactly what they type in to the Google search box). If it succeeds, it will attract more traffic and make more money out of AdWords (its pay- per-click product).

• The Site owner: wants high ranking in search results whenever a user types in a keyword which it deems relevant to its business; i.e. they want to maximize quality and quantity of traffic to their site.

• The SEO consultancy/ professional: wants to do a good job for the Site owner i.e. get the site up the Google rankings, driving more traffic, pleasing the client and thus getting more optimization briefs and making more money.

Good site design and legitimate SEO helps everyone: users who search by a given keyword find a relevant site which delivers what they were looking for and provides a good experience. The SEO professional and the design/build agency should work together to make the site visible to search engines which pleases them since they are helping their customers (=searchers). The Google spiders (or crawlers) look at millions of web pages and assess their relevance to a particular search (yes, it’s amazing I know). It’s absolutely OK to help them by a little judicious signposting (like putting up a sign in the street outside your shop; effectively the site is ‘putting its best foot forward’) . Also, if you can get plenty of inbound links (i.e. other sites publishing links to your site) Google likes this: it suggests your site must be of high quality. It’s OK to solicit these links (e.g. if you are a florist, you might ask local chocolate shops if they want to link to your site). So far so good.

The problems occur when SEO practitioners and/ or site owner Webmasters attempt to deceive the search engine spiders (and therefore ultimately the user) by employing a range of techniques to manipulate the Google rankings (including any or all of: spamdexing, cloaking, doorway pages, keyword stuffing, invisible text, deals with link farms +++).

Ever since Search was invented, unscrupulous SEO experts (known as ‘black hat’ operators) have been trying to manipulate it, i.e. to get people to visit sites under false pretences, taking them to sites which were not what they were looking for; the result being an unfair advantage to the site owner and/or confused/ dissatisfied visitors, a scenario which benefits no-one except the black hat guys! If they succeed, they achieve an inappropriately high Google ranking and ultimately can even take the user to a site that wasn’t what they were looking for. Of course it isn’t always as cut and dried as this: in many cases, the user would be equally satisfied by any one of a number of search results, and techniques may be used which give a good site a ‘helping hand’ in the listings. There are grey areas: like how many times can one legitimately include a given keyword in one’s content: 3 times in a page makes the site relevant, three times in a sentence looks sinister and may lead to Google penalizing or even delisting your site.

Of course, there is one obvious question which we haven’t addressed here (space doesn’t allow): who decides which SEO techniques are OK and which are ‘black hat’? which can get your site demoted in the listings or even banned? Of course currently it’s Google who decides. 'Baddies' clearly operate in this space so some sanctions are necessary; but should a single company (even our buddies at Google) be given so much power?

Effectively the black hat SEO specialists are engaged in an ever-shifting battle of wits with the search engines and the (secret) Google algorithm is certainly much more sophisticated at picking up dubious SEO techniques than it was 10 years ago. eg. stuffing in loads of invisible keywords used to be much more prevalent (and effective!). Even legitimate SEO has evolved with the Search Engines. Metatags (invisible to users but viewed by the spiders) used to be very important; less so today. Indeed, if you read a book on SEO dated before 2004 (say) I respectfully suggest you may be wasting your time!

As part of an ongoing mission to fight spam and improve user experience, Google is apparently implementing a series of changes to the algorithm (it doesn't announce these). In the future, as Google moves towards behaviour/ intent based search, it is possible that each person who conducts a search for a particular term will get different results based on their interests, search history and even their location. As a result, SEO will need to evolve. One possibility is that link building will become far less important in the future of SEO because Google will determine the ‘value’ (= relevance) of a website based on how visitors engage with it. This would imply that the ultimate goal of site owners should be to provide compelling content that entices visitors to read, share, bookmark, and so on.

Another possibility is that search engines will in future provide user-controlled rankings. Users might have the chance to vote for sites they like and sites will get ranked based on such votes. (The model would be similar to Digg and Reddit). Of course, search engines will need to ensure that votes are genuine in order to prevent black hat SEO specialists from manipulating the results.

Google and the other search engines are raising the bar in SEO. Initially, this will make it harder for SEO professionals but the end result must be good. Spammers and 'black hat's will have more difficulty succeeding in their unscrupulous efforts and search engine users will be provided with content that is more relevant.

As always, the aim of webmasters and SEO professionals should be to appeal to humans not machines. Your site should certainly be optimized (to give you a fighting chance in the competitive marketplace) but your priority should always be to meet human needs and provide solutions. Considering the direction that SEO is going, human actions and behaviour will ultimately determine rankings. Your SEO success will depend on your ability to engage people through great content and shrewd social media marketing. This is as it should be.

The internet has transformed our lives: at work, at home and increasingly on the move. The Web is becoming richer and more complex every day. To cope with the mind boggling amount of data it offers, we need increasingly sophisticated tools to make sense of it: to 'organise the world’s information'. Unscrupulous operators will always try to manipulate the search engine spiders (or crawlers) to gain a higher ranking but they must be prevented from doing this; it’s in the public interest, as well as that of Google, Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves, Live Search/ Bing and not least genuine SEO professionals, that the user can find the 'right' site as rapidly as possible every time.

If one believes that Advertising (assisted by agents as 'paid advocates') i.e. promoting the benefits of a product or service to the target audience by all appropriate media, is a legitimate activity in a free society, then it follows that SEO is OK and indeed desirable: it helps honest merchants reach their willing audiences. Indeed, Google doesn’t want to kill SEO; and even if it ceases to be such a dominant player in the search world, other search engines are likely to want to work with ‘honest’ SEO professionals rather than against them.

So current rumours of the imminent death of SEO are much exaggerated. As long as search engines publish free lists of ‘relevant’ sites, SEO will exist. Naturally (sorry) like everything in the digital world, SEO will need to evolve and adapt. It will do so. Intent and behaviour-based search will grow. Social search (e.g. via Twitter) will enable users to ask questions to aggregated groups of real people in real time. Not so easy for site owners to optimize! Watch this space.

Google: they know where we live!

These are unusually tough times for Google. The company, which is not accustomed to announcing bad news, is cutting 200 jobs in sales and marketing, (following the 100 recruitment jobs earlier this year) the biggest round of layoffs in the company's history. Meanwhile a group of British MPs is up in arms about the new Google Latitude mobile tracking technology and various consumer groups have noticed Google’s share of the search market (79% globally and over 85% in the UK).

Now what's all this fuss about Google Street View? And why is Google doing it?

Well perhaps it sounds like more of an invasion of privacy than it really is: after a successful launch in the US, Google has sent out vans to drive round the streets of 25 UK cities (covering over 22,000 miles!) taking still pictures of houses, shops and inevitably cars and people going about their everyday business. They’ve stuck these images together, constructing 360 degree views. Google has committed to blurring faces and car registration numbers and if you still think you can be identified and you’re not happy, you can complain and they will blur you more and even ‘wipe out’ your house if you wish. I predict the fuss will die down, as it largely has in the US.

As for why Google is doing it, there is only one possible answer; location, location, location. This is related to digital marketers’ holy grail of behavioural targeting; the general idea being to serve you advertising messages e.g. clickable banners, SMSs, Bluetooth alerts etc which are relevant to what you are doing, the mood you are in, and yes, even where you are (or plan to be). For me, this is a good thing. After all, isn't relevant and useful marketing the best sort? Don't most consumers tell us they welcome such helpful information about products and services?

Years ago I worked with a Dutch guy called Harold Goddijn; in fact our agency designed the logo for his start-up company. He didn't have much money but he paid us (on time) and said thank-you (= a good client). He told me with utter conviction that ‘location will be the next big thing in marketing’. Well it's taken a few years for the technology to catch up with the vision but TomTom is now Europe’s leading manufacturer of ‘Sat Nav’ systems (with 2009 forecast revenue over €1.5 billion) and Harold is deservedly a billionaire.

For my (somewhat lesser amount of) money, the UK Information Commissioner was right to ‘green light’ Google Street View. Despite its current difficulties (and these are unusual times for us all!) Google has, in its short corporate lifetime, consistently innovated and pushed the boundaries, at the same time creating what is arguably the world’s coolest brand with very little traditional marketing and promotion. Street View is only sharing images you or I can capture perfectly legally if we have a digital camera (on a 7 foot stick) and enough time to walk the streets of UK cities.

So if a service called something like 'Google Near Here' is next, then bring it on!