Google Announced yesterday that Encrypted or Secure search will be expanded to international Google Domains after a period of testing on Google.com. Is Google “Search Plus Your World” about to be rolled out internationally? Is SEO about to change and will social marketing become a key factor in SEO?

Encrypted Search will unfortunately result in a reduction in recorded search query data, this is all thanks to the SSL or Secure Socket Layer Google has enabled on all logged in searches, not carrying over search query data for organic search results. So how will this affect you?

Google will be introducing encryption to its local domains over the next few weeks, i.e. google.co.uk, google.fr etc. The move is to ensure greater levels of user privacy, allowing user search result pages to be displayed using HTTPs by default. This is obviously great for user privacy but there is a draw back, search query string data is not being transferred from the secure Google search session for a click on an organic listing. This is resulting in a huge increase in “not provided” search query string data within Analytics and third party tools. This is a big blow for Marketers, providing incomplete keyword performance monitoring data, unfortunately not allowing Marketers to accurately gauge keyword performance and influence for logged in Google users. The click will still be identified as coming from “Google” and from an “Organic” source, but the keyword will not be attributed to the click.

The move to Encrypted search is controversial enough, with a change to Google’s privacy policy, but Google has very kindly left a loophole in the policy allowing Google Advertisers to see the encrypted data. This has caused outrage within the SEO and Online Marketing communities raising a very important point. Google is happy to help protect its users privacy but only to a point where it does not effect Google advertising sales, allowing paying advertisers to access the data and thus protecting its own profitability and product marketability above its users privacy.

Encrypted search was rolled out on Google.com in October 2011, in January it became clear why this had happened, as Google launched “Search Plus Your World” which requires Encrypted search to protect personal user search data which is published directly into a logged in users search results. “Search Plus Your World” incorporates, by default, “Personal Results” from social interactions, which personalises your search based on user behaviour and social connections; this will include content shared with you through your Google+ Social network. Potentially making Google + an essential and influential marketing channel. So as an example if a user was searching for a restaurant in a city and if one or more of the users Google + friends had mentioned a restaurant in the area within their Google + Feed, the results would be incorporated into the users search results. Providing real and potentially trusted experiences from actual people and incorporating their opinions into a Google search. Powerful stuff if it actually works, but the success of this will rely on a proactive network of friends and as yet Google + does not have the reach of networks like Facebook or Twitter.

“The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful,” said Amit Singhal from Google, who oversees Google’s ranking Algorithm in a talk with Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land.

To find out more about “Search Plus Your World” please check out this great article from Danny Sullivan Click Here.

It’s clear to see the influence and importance social content will have as a ranking signal in Google in the future. Google is open to adding social content to the Google “Search Plus Your World” results from Facebook, Twitter and perhaps even more networks. This does potentially mean a complete change to the way search results are served, promoting the opinions of friends from social networks as influencing factors when a user researches a topic. The impact of this on SEO has yet to be fully assessed but it’s clear to see that Social and SEO are now one in the same. Google acknowledges that existing social interactions are monitored and used as a ranking signal within its algorithm, is this the end of SEO as we know it, are we seeing the mainstream birth of Social SEO?

What is assured is a greater focus on Social, SEO, Local, Mobile and multi channel marketing. This will result in marketers needing to demonstrate more effectively campaign success, measuring engagement, interaction, amplification and applause of online marketing campaigns. Understanding the interactions between search and social and utilising SEO to leverage organic ranking.

Gauging Social Search success, conversion and ROI will be the next big challenge for SEO. The growing complexity of a users interaction with a brand or product and the complex multi channel journey a user now takes when interacting with a website will need to be monitored and quantified by marketers. It will be essential to fully understand the interactions of users across multiple channels in order to quantify campaign success and how visitors convert to sales or enquiries.

Encrypted search is just the start, “Search Plus Your World” is coming and potentially marks the dawn of a new search age, providing intuitive and personalised search results where actual friend experiences influence your decision making process. The importance of Mobile and Local search cannot be ignored and their influence will continue to grow as a greater emphasis is placed on more refined and personalised search results. Is this taking search one-step to far, would users rather research to find new information outside of their social circles? Is this a first step towards Serendipitous Search? Only time will tell.

Article by Matt Blay at Creative SEO
A7BMJ6349US5

Last August Twitter announced the launch of a new location sharing feature which allowed users to tag there Tweets with their Geographical location, this was only available as part of the API, until now.
Twitter will be adding the new functionality to its website, allowing Twitter users to tag their Tweets with their location, so what does this mean? Well on the one hand the prospect of real time search results which are based on location does seem very exciting. To be able to monitor and predict trends and public opinion based on location could offer some extremely valuable data. But is this new technology opening up a “Can of Worms”, with personal security potentially at stake, will 2010 be the year of the Stalker? Luckily the new service can only be enabled by physically opting in to location sharing. This will naturally police the situation and should hopefully prevent any potential security issues with location sharing and privacy.
Quite interestingly IE and Safari Users will be disappointed as the new location feature will only work on Firefox and Google Chrome at this time.
“Let’s say I’m at my office and I hear a loud boom. It sounded serious, so I search Twitter for “boom.” Among the first results could be someone who tweeted “Boom go the fireworks!” This could be anywhere in the world. However, if that person had activated the new tweet location feature then the neighbourhood data under the tweet would read, “SoMa.”

Now I know it’s just fireworks going off in my neighbourhood. Boom! Plus, the word “SoMa” is linked to a Google map so I can explore a bit more. There are many ways location data can be useful when paired with tweets.” Taken from the official Twitter blog.

It’s an interesting new technology and we would love to hear your thoughts?
Article by Creative SEO

There has been an ongoing issue which has affected a large proportion of twitter users. Twitter users have been victimised by phishing scams through links in direct messages. In order to protect its users and to combat the issue Twitter has announced the launch of its very own URL shortener.

“Today, we’re launching a new service to protect users that strikes a major blow against phishing and other deceitful attacks. By routing all links submitted to Twitter through this new service, we can detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links across all of Twitter. Even if a bad link is already sent out in an email notification and somebody clicks on it, we’ll be able to keep that user safe.” Twitter said.

Twitter will be initially focusing on Direct messages and notifications but its believed the new service will be rolled out to all areas of Twitter.

Author: Creative SEO

Google have partnered with the Wharton School to launch a brand new resource for Marketers to share and learn about the ever changing world of Marketing. The site is called Fast.Forward and is based as a YouTube channel. It features hundreds of valuable and informative videos from some of the world’s top marketing academics and leading experts including Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Lauder Professor at the Wharton School, Jerry Wind, Nancy Hill, CEO of AAAA.

“As consumers become more and more technologically savvy, businesses and marketers have worked quickly to keep up. As a result, many companies are left questioning what they aren’t doing that they should be, or what they should do next to stay in front of the right people, in the right place, at the right time, in an increasingly digital world.

To address some of these questions, we have partnered with The Wharton School to launch our Fast.Forward. Channel on YouTube, which highlights insightful perspectives from industry experts and academics on how marketers can stay ahead in the changing landscape. (You might have seen a similar site launched by our UK marketing team in partnership with London Business School earlier this year.)” Taken from the Google Biz Blog.

This is a great source of information which will only improve over time and is well worth a visit.

Article by Creative SEO UK

YouTube, the social networking video sharing community, is said to be in discussions with Sony & Lions Gate Films to offer a Film & Movie Rental service through the YouTube portal.

YouTube, one of the internet’s visited websites, recently announced that it would be offering premium, professionally produced content onto its network in order to attract more users and increase advertising revenue. Last month, as part of an agreement, Time Warner, CNN, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim added older content to the YouTube Network. At present the majority of YouTube content is user generated or uploaded. The addition of paid content will see a dramatic change to the existing site, offering new sources of revenue and advertising opportunities.

“Google’s trying to find ways to better monetize this very good asset,” said Andy Miedler, an analyst at Edward Jones & Co. “As long as the economics make sense, I certainly applaud them for trying to increase the revenue stream.”

Chris Dale, a YouTube spokesman, declined to comment on “rumors or speculation.”

“We hope to expand on both our great relationships with movie studios and on the selection and types of videos we offer our community,” Dale said, without being more specific. The Wall Street Journal reported the story yesterday.

YouTube has also reported that it has come to a final settlement with PRS for Music and Music Videos will shortly be available to view in the UK once again. PRS requested a large royalty fee from YouTube for playing and distributing Music Videos and related content. YouTube announced that the Fee structure was too high and that advertising revenue would not fund such high charges.
After lengthy discussions with PRS, YouTube announced back in March that it would be blocking music content until a settlement could be made in regards to license fees. Nearly 6 months on and the service will finally be renewed.

Article by Creative SEO UK