One of the current subjects of discussion in the web marketing community is Google’s addition of the Google+ social networking service to its tool chest of products. Google+ is of interest to web marketing, and particularly SEO practitioners, because of Google’s apparent intention to include the Google+ ‘likes’ directly into its organic search ranking algorithm, which will shift the search ranking results away from general internet relevancy towards a more Google proprietary relevancy. It also means that the determination of whether a website ranks well or not will directly relate to the number of people using the Google+ service, and what kind of people they are, ie, what age are they, what social background, and what they think about Google.
This is a concern not just because of the discrimination involved, but also because, in spite of Google’s attempts to fend off anti-trust actions against it with its ‘consolidation’ of its privacy policy over the last week, to join Google+ you basically have to entirely open up your life to Google. Google says that by letting them know every search you do, every person, phone number and email account of everyone you know, it will be able to provide an increasingly personalised service, anticipating for you what you are really interested in, and skewing the information Google decides you want to see. Anyone who has read George Orwell will now be screaming ‘1984!’ (it could also be Fahrenheit 451?). In Google’s new terms and conditions, they say using any of their products will become subject to their new privacy policy, which basically means you are allowing them to know literally everything about you. If you don’t want that, you won’t be able to join Google+. (more…)
The Google search engine has been close to all our hearts since it started; it won us over with its speed, the relevancy of its results and its uncluttered, no-nonsense approach. So the world flocked to it to the point that doing a search has become synonymous with the brand: we ‘google’ it. (more…)