Search Engines and Social Media: Struggle of the Giants
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Why are all these talks about the social media and their increasing influence upon the Internet in the context of SEO? What should we, simple folks, expect from head-to-head competition between search engines and social media sites?
Let`s make some insight into recent history. Some two years ago, Facebook officially started sharing information it had accumulated in their databases, of course not the private info, but the info that people allowed to be shown. It announced partnership with Bing also (but a little later), hoping to create some kind of ultimately new search with social at the very heart of it. That same year, Google made an attempt to use Twitter for the same purposes, and announced indexing Facebook status updates.
Are Google+ and Facebook rivals?
About a year ago, Google was not partnering with Twitter already and introduced their own social network, Google +. Many had doubts whether this social system would be vital, or whether it could outrank its far greater competitor. Some were skeptic about such a possibility. Others foresaw the great future for Google brainchild.
I hold the view that it is pointless to expect from Google + to become such a powerful social network as Facebook, as well as it is unreal for Facebook to become a robust search engine like Google.
What is social search
An urge of the time to create more reliable, more personalized search, the drawbacks of the traditional search ranking signals like backlink profiles, the web itself which is continually growing in size - these are the factors that make Google and its competitors invest into creation of the valid social search.
The very essence of the social search is simple: being part of some social network, each person reveals some personal information to the system. The system knows some of your likes and dislikes, your data. So, the search results are shown to you according to your preferences, judging from the personal data retrieved from the social network.
Google+ is an SEO social tool
There are tons of such personal data and people`s preferences on Facebook. This is what makes Facebook so powerful. On the other hand, there are even more people who desire so much to obtain this information. However, privacy restrictions and lack of robust indexing capacity won`t let Facebook to come close to Google speed and functionality.
Well, Google has all the above but it lacks Facebook database about its users. Now they have Google +. Again, I doubt the expected success of Google+ as a social network. Facebook was created for communication and for people and it remains as such up to now. Google+, on the contrary, was created aiming exclusively at purposes of search requests and it will remain an SEO tool forever. As part of everything connected with SEO, it will be subject to gaming, to buying and selling links, likes, circles, whatever, to cheating and manipulating. In the end plus-one-dependant search will become as spammed and helpless as present-day link-dependant search.
What are your thoughts? You are welcome to share them with us!
By the way, have you seen that? Great way to feel winter approaching! Let it snow
Have some fun with Google! Create your own drawing using your mouse and share it with your friends!
2011-12-20 21:03 by Cancanit, Back To Top
Alex said...
Cancanit said...
@Alex How nice! I didn't noticed that, thank you! Merry Christmas to you! ))
Lady Google said...
Thanks for the informative article! When I read about everything what is going on underneath there, it really scares me, as I feel as though they are just using me and may be, there could be some information I really wouldn't share... I have to go and check up one more time all my privacy settings!
@ Lady Google Did you know that Facebook has already been fined for privacy issues? And more issues are coming - so I think we should expect stricter rules for Facebook and social networking in general. So, nothing to worry about!
I wouldn't worry about Facebook as a rival to Google. They have completely different areas of advertising, target audiences and aims, no competition at all, as to me. It has no strength or passion or people or technical opportunities to develop serious search with Bing. Facebook will soon become influential political power rather than a social search, to my way of thinking.
"Let it snow" - I opened and thought what a nice SERP page! And then I mentioned that there is not paid search results on it. :)) Marry Christmas!
2011-12-20 21:13:58