Search Engine Optimization News Blog

Google has introduced SearchWiki on Thursday (20-Nov-2008). SearchWiki is an advanced way of searching the internet for specific keywords. The whole scenario of the search engine results would be changed. The most important feature of SearchWiki is that the search results would be modifiable. The sites can be moved up and down to change the order you like and prefer. As a user, you would be able to change the order in which the actual results are listed and they are sorted. You would even be able to write notes and comments besides the website URL. This would really be of help when you visit Google the next time. Others as well would be able to see your comments but the person who wishes to use this new feature and read user comments. The person would even be able to view the new sorted list. The annotations that are written by the user would also be available for him to read it in the future.

As the annotations that are written are made available for the public for perusal. The main visible drawback of this feature is that the comments that are made along with the sorted website list would be available for everyone to review. However, you as a user, would anytime be free to delete or edit the comments you have written. Because of this feature the genuine users of Google might hesitate to write their comments if they are too personal. The other group of people who would miss use the tool might be spammers. “See all notes for this SearchWiki” would be the link available for the logged in users in Google at the bottom of the search results. Clicking on this link would help the user in viewing the re-ranked results and comments of other users.

Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, Ms. Marissa Mayer, says that the results for this feature when tested internally tended to have more comments about the website’s relevancy with the particular search term. She also asked search engine optimizers and SEO companies not to start studying about SearchWiki and its effects on the Google ranking, as the results of SearchWiki would not influence the general ranking. She added that the algorithm for ranking the sites would remain the same at least for now. She also said that they have noted that the searches that many Google users do are duplicate queries as they have had searched for the same keyword before as well. So for such users SearchWiki would be very useful as this would enable them to have their comments written for a particular site so that they do not have to repeat it the next time. This would also help them in reaching the right website more easily without having to search again. Should we expect this new release from Google to change the entire grammar of online search?