Google manipulates search results: A boost for small business?
By Glenn Murray | Advertising
Copywriter, Website
Copywriter, Article PR Specialist *
As more and more businesses strive for a top
ten Google ranking, it's becoming harder and harder to achieve. This is
especially true for smaller businesses that simply don't have the
budget for a big link popularity campaign. But hope may be just around
the corner. If a top ten ranking for your primary keywords has been
eluding you, then read on!
Google manipulates the results
Google is trialing an 'enhancement' to the way
it displays its results. Instead of showing the top ten results for the
exact words you enter, in the trial Google suggests three related
results that you might want to check out. Where does it display these
suggestions? It shunts (or replaces) results 6, 7 and 8 !!!
In this article, I refer to these results as 'intruders'.
To see some 'intruder' results in action,
search for "piggy bank". Results 6, 7 and 8 are actually 'intruder'
results; they're the top three results for the more specific, less
popular search, "piggy bank lyrics". Google assumes that people
searching for "piggy bank" will probably be interested in results of a
search for "piggy bank lyrics".
On first impressions, it's tempting to think
that this makes it harder to get into the top ten (because now it's
really the top seven, and the last two results may be easily
overlooked). But it may actually make it easier - especially for
smaller businesses. Let me explain why...
The advantage for smaller businesses
It all comes down to who can rank in the top
ten for the most popular searches - like "computers", "cars", "doctor",
"pets", etc. For anyone in these industries, a top ten ranking for
these keywords is the holy grail. Unfortunately, these sorts of
searches are presently dominated by big corporations with hefty search
budgets. Most smaller businesses don't even try to compete. Instead of
focusing on these hotly contested keywords, small businesses tend to
focus on much more specific keyword phrases - like "computers boston",
"second hand cars ohio", "female doctor new england", "discount pets
for children", etc.
But Google's trial may change that. Remember,
it's replacing results 6, 7 and 8 of a popular, broad search with
results 1, 2 and 3 of a less popular, more specific search. If the
trial becomes a standard feature, a search for "computers" might well
include three 'intruder' results from a search such as "computers
boston". As discussed above, results 6, 7 and 8 are likely to belong to
big companies, whereas results 1, 2 and 3 of the more specific search
are more likely to belong to smaller businesses. Therefore, when the
switch occurs, it's out with the big and in with the small!
In principle the enhancement appears to work in favor of small businesses:
- Big business dominates popular / general search results
- Smaller businesses have a greater chance of dominating less popular / more specific search results
- General search results are replaced by specific search results
- Big businesses are shunted out of the top ten by smaller businesses
Now I hear what you're saying: "Why wouldn't
the big companies simply start optimizing for the more specific
searches?" Granted, this is a possibility; but for most big companies,
it would be a monumental task. Big companies tend to service a large
geographic region, and they typically offer numerous products and
services. Even a hefty search budget would be stretched to the limit if
it was required to bankroll optimization for every single product,
every single service, and every single location. And this is what would
be required to dominate all of the more specific results, thereby
gaining back their number 6, 7 or 8 position. It's far more likely that
they'll simply try harder for a position in the top 5 of the
popular/general search. This approach would be less complex and
probably more rewarding.
The fine print
Of course, where Google is involved, nothing
is ever that simple. I've oversimplified things above to make the trial
a little easier to understand. In reality, the situation is a bit more
complex because of the way Google chooses which search the three
'intruder' results come from. Take the "piggy bank" search for example.
Google assumes that most users who search for "piggy bank" will also be
interested in results from a search for "piggy bank lyrics". This
assumption is based on the fact that thousands of other people are
searching specifically for "piggy bank lyrics" - in fact, it's one of
the most popular searches containing the original term "piggy bank".
And that's why it gets the nod.
In other words, the intruder results come from
popular searches (less popular than the original, but still popular).
This means you'd already have to rank highly in a very popular search
before you'd become an intruder. So, in reality, the above "computer"
example is a little simplistic; the intruder results for "computer" are
more likely to be from a search for something like "computers ibm". In
reality, the top three results for "computer peripherals boston" are
more likely to appear as intruders in a "computer peripherals" search.
Conclusion
The important thing to remember is that if
this trial becomes a standard feature, it will be implemented on all
searches. And the more specific the original search, the easier it
would be to become an intruder in that search. In theory, it has great
potential to help smaller businesses reach the next rung of the search
engine ladder.
Other examples
Here are some further examples if you're interested:
- Search for "add url"
- Search for "on demand"
Happy shunting!
* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter, website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR specialist. He heads copywriting studio, Divine Write, and is a director of article PR company, Article PR. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
. Visit http://www.DivineWrite.com or http://www.ArticlePR.com for further details, a FREE SEO eBook, or more FREE reprint articles.
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