In their on-going quest to “offer users precisely what they’re looking for”, Google announced last week that they’re starting to include listings from their news, maps, books, video and image databases in their regular web search results.
What this means, they say, is that users no longer have to visit several different Google search properties to find an array of information on a topic.
In theory it sounds like a good idea: lump everything together in one search result so users no longer need to perform separate searches for videos, images, books etc. But, in practice, we could see Google’s results become cluttered with so much “stuff” that users have a hard time finding precisely what they’re looking for. If that happens, Google’s loyal followers may decide to jump ship and use another engine.
Of course, there are also implications for search engine marketing professionals. Now they’ll have to make sure they produce even more relevant content for their clients and that the content fits the criteria for each database. Although, shouldn’t they have been doing that anyway?
Anyhow, here’s what you need to know.
News Search Results
It’s not easy getting into Google News. First, you need to publish articles regularly and get listed as a Google Publisher. Then it’s not enough to give your article/s a simple URL such as www.mysite.com/myarticle – you need to make sure each URL has a unique three digit number. That means if you want old articles to be included, you’ll need to change all your old URLs. That, of course, will effect your existing regular search engine listings. So, leave your old articles alone and start adding three digit numbers to all new article URLs.
Video Search Results
Online video is big right now so you should consider using it as part of an overall marketing strategy anyway. Video files can be large so you’ll need to check if your server can handle them before posting them to your site. Another option is to distribute them via YouTube. If you make sure you include your company information in the video, you stand a good chance of getting links and traffic to your site.
Image Search Results
If your site includes images make sure you add descriptive text to them as well. You should be including a description in the image alt attribute anyway. If not, go through your images and add one. In addition you can sign-up for Google’s Enhanced Image Search.
Local Search Results
Even if you trade nationally or internationally, getting listed in Google’s Local Search is not a bad idea.
Blog Search Results
I’m not sure what Google are going to do about including their Blog Search Results in their regular listings. I have a feeling that they may leave this one out due, in part, to the fact that it includes a lot of spam. That said, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get your blog included in the Blog Search Results, especially if you make it part of your existing site. Make sure the content is good as any links you get pointing to it may improve popularity and help your site’s rankings. If you haven’t submitted your blog to Technorati or other blog search engines, you may want to do that now. It could be that Google uses these engines to discover blogs for its results.
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By the way, you’ll notice that this article has three-digits in the URL. The pages have been submitted and approved for Google News so let’s see how long it takes them to include it, and whether it gets edited or not. That could tell us whether humans are involved.