Post image for Ding-Dong, SEO and PageRank Are Dead

Ding-Dong, SEO and PageRank Are Dead

by Jorge Escobar on October 30, 2009

Even as users still question whether real-time is just a passing fad or a really transforming path, I think the future is clear: real-time’s most impact will be on search.

And Google is showing up signs of distress.

First they tried to buy Twitter. That was the best move they could’ve tried. Unfortunately its founders were not impressed and really believed in their company. Reportedly they said they wouldn’t sell for a billion dollars.

Google could just scoff and carry on, right? Wrong. They need real-time because that’s where search is moving.

In the past (like in the late last century) people would look for content using keywords that were present on pages. Google designed and optimized ways for people to reach those pages based on those keywords.

Today, people ask their followers or search for mentions of those keywords on the Twitter firehose. SEO is now effectively word of mouth. Social Search is here.

It’s a whole different game, and the problem is that Google’s livelihood is at stake here.

Sure, they got all these other products like Gmail and Maps, but search is their bread and butter and where they make most of their money thanks to those two satellite services Adwords and Adsense.

Just this week they’ve released two announcements to try and echo to the world that they’re all over Social Search. I think this is the right direction, but so far Google has not been very efficient in the social arena.

Google can’t risk to be dethroned from its Search leadership by some small startups (like they did themselves to the top  players 10 or so years ago), so they are going to have to really think hard (or acquire someone) to get back into this game.

This, of course, is also a wake up call for SEO consultants. It’s time to shift focus to tools like Radian6. And brands wanting to score better on search better start listening to their customers and creating communities around them.

Otherwise they’ll end up like the famous Wicked Witch of the East (thanks John).

(Happy Halloween)

Photo from Lucy the Blog

9 Comments 32 Tweets

{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }

Jorge Escobar October 30, 2009 at 1:48 pm

Even as users still question whether real-time is just a passing fad or a really transforming path, I think the future is clear: real-time’s most impact will be on search.And Google is showing up signs of distress.

This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

Reply   More from author

John Craft October 30, 2009 at 1:54 pm

Umm, Jorge? The Witch that got killed by the Gales’ house was the Wicked Witch of the East. Dorothy melted the Wicked Witch of the West. Other than that, great post.

Reply

Jorge Escobar October 30, 2009 at 1:56 pm

HAHAHA! That’s correct, I will correct ASAP, don’t want the “Wicked” fans mobbing on me. Thanks for visiting!

Reply   More from author

Rochelle October 30, 2009 at 1:57 pm

Liked for the photo.

This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

Reply   More from author

Jorge Escobar October 30, 2009 at 1:58 pm

@Rochelle, so the post is crap? ;)

This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

Reply   More from author

Debby Bruck October 30, 2009 at 2:18 pm

very creative. Wizard’s witch

This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

Reply   More from author

Jorge Escobar October 30, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Thanks Debby! I’ve got the song stuck in my head since I wrote the post! :(

This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

Reply   More from author

Rochelle October 30, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Jorge, I didn’t read the article because I don’t know anything about or care about SEO or PageRank. :)

This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

Reply   More from author

Jorge Escobar October 30, 2009 at 2:20 pm

LOL! Ok, forgiven… ;)

This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

Reply   More from author

Eric Logan October 30, 2009 at 4:52 pm

Bing-Bong the Witch is dead seems more appropriate ?. This could be a potential theme song it is beautiful and sounds vaguely familiar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ltAGuuru7Q&feature=related

Reply   More from author

Jorge Escobar October 30, 2009 at 5:16 pm

Eric: Bing-Bong as Microsoft’s Bing you meant?

Reply   More from author

Eric Logan October 30, 2009 at 5:31 pm

Yes, It was my one feeble attempt at search engine humor for the day.

Reply   More from author

Jorge Escobar October 30, 2009 at 5:33 pm

HAHAHA! Err… not working! ;)

Reply   More from author

jan geronimo October 30, 2009 at 10:00 pm

I’ve been itching to ask the implication of social search on SEO and how best bloggers adapt to these significant shift in real time, social search. What do you think? Lots of SEO experts would not be happy with this. Perhaps they should start calling themselves social media experts now? LOL

Reply   More from author

Mike October 31, 2009 at 8:30 am

I’m not sure search is dead. I agree social search is taking off, but it’s sort of a ‘first derivative’ activity. No doubt Google is already planning to take over this market.

Reply   More from author

Jorge Escobar October 31, 2009 at 9:37 pm

I agree Mike, I am putting a little ‘drama’ on the post, to emphasize the content. I also agree that Google is taking steps to continue its leadership, the only issue is how bad its social track record has been to this point, which makes it necessary to leverage third parties (or acquire them).

Thanks for visiting, I also am now following you on Twitter and visited your blog. I read “Crushit” this week and will put a blog post about it this week as well.

Reply   More from author

Debby Bruck November 2, 2009 at 1:59 am

I will have to visit FriendFeed more often. Just looking thru comments now. Does anyone use Retagger.com?

This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

Reply   More from author

Andre White December 27, 2009 at 12:38 am

Retaggr needs some promotion. I’ve been using it for a few months now and can’t believe how little notice the world takes of them. Especially as they can import most (if not all) of your FF services to populate their own list. It’s also pretty far advanced for Semantic / SEO with XFN etc. I use it as a spread sheet to keep track of all my online identities that just happens to let other users compare and connect with SEO / Semantic bonuses to boot. I use FriendFeed to read indirectly (via linking / Facebook) and Ping.fm to write. Google and the other ‘Big Engines’ are supposed to be using that stuff (Foaf / XFN etc) as well as ‘Real Time Search – aka Twitter’. We’ll see where it goes.

Reply   More from author

Jorge Escobar November 2, 2009 at 10:34 am

@Debby haven’t used Retagger.com myself, what is it?

This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed

Reply   More from author

SEO Wanna Be November 3, 2009 at 8:11 pm

Hi your post is amazing, It’s incredible, I learned a lot about SEO and Man, this thing’s getting better and better as I learn more about internet marketing. Also as part of my ongoing mission to find the absolute best tools to make money, this is without a doubt at the top of my list. Everything happened so fast!

Reply   More from author

Leave a Comment

Additional comments powered by BackType

Previous post:

Next post: