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I'm putting this in the Search section because I think it reinforces a big lesson that need stating constantly...
Bloomberg released a post today called:
Google’s Top Search Results Spotlight a Narrowing of the Open Web
It's so short the entire thing can be included here:
since the entire post is like 100 words and then their own data.
In the post you'll find this image, the meat of the entire post:
What you have on the outsides are the top 100 most searched terms. And then they mapped the each search term to the top ranking result up the middle.
You could call this the "spine of the internet." These are the big players who get the bulk of traffic from Google. Nobody is surprised (think of all the anti-trust investigations) that Google recommends itself somehow on 29 of the top 100 results as the best option (let alone the 2nd, 3rd, etc.).
Nine other companies make up the bulk of the results for non-branded and even branded terms for other companies. 41 times you'll get the actual brand you searched for (versus their parent company).
In only two instances do you get other sites. One is 123movies, which I assume is some illegal streaming site on bulletproof hosting somewhere in Asia, and "youtube to mp3" a generic search term.
What are the Implications for SEO?
Branding
Obviously, branding is everything in a spam-filled search world. Google will only continue to give more weight to brands, more weight to contextual links, more weight to age. Why not? It's a simple way to provide quality.
But that means there's an extreme lack of diversification in the SERPs, which we've all complained about at one time or another. I used to visit 100's of sites back in the day of directories, blog wheels, blog carnivals, etc. Now I have a little routine of like 3 sites a day, plus a few other brands I go to directly when I'm bored at night.
This is entirely because I don't discover new sites on Google. I get the same old controlled, "safe" (agenda driven) sites. It's no surprise to me that I spend time on sites that are like forums, where other people aggregate and curate interesting content for me to see. I simply don't search enough to find it. Even on Youtube I stick to the recommendations on the homepage since they crippled the sidebar and search.
Traffic Leaking
You get to a site these days in 3 ways: 1) Google Search, 2) Direct Visits, 3) Social Sharing. Number one is great if you can pull it off. I'm not at all saying "SEO is Dead" or anything of the sort. But obviously the bulk of traffic is going direct to certain sites or to those sites through search.
We can sit on our hands trying to get traffic from search too, or we can go take advantage of other platforms with tons of users (Facebook, Reddit, etc.) This is the best way to improve your performance in search and make money in the immediate moment. Every time you leak, you create a backlink or a social share. If you do good, others see that and see the validation and end up sharing it or posting it on their own sites.
Journalists don't do any real work these days. I'd venture to say there's less than 100 real journalists left. The rest are glorified bloggers sitting on Twitter, Reddit, and 4chan rewriting stories other people have found and shared. That can be you. It's like HARO except you have a much better chance to get good placements with validation already occurring.
Paid Advertising
If you can afford it, this is the shortcut. You need to be able to get an ROI if you're not Coca-Cola, but there's no better way to get results now instead of later. I know of a guy who has never built a link to his site but has 100k+ and ranks for enough terms to pull down a million visitors in organic traffic per month. How did he do it? Partially due to the search exposure he got, but it all come from running Facebook ads at $5 a day for a few articles at a time. People see it, share it on Facebook, take it to forums and their own blogs and mention it. Simple and easy, but can be "expensive." ($15 a day, how many days do you piss that away on dumb stuff? Every day?)
-----
I don't think things will get better for Google Search and SEO on Google. These other big sites have search algorithms too, you know? How many people are gaming Amazon's search, Facebook's search, and even sites like Fiverr?
How long until we get vertical-specific search engines? What if there was a Fitness search engine that showed 20 results from 20 different domains, and perhaps even gave options for searchers like "show me less popular sites, show me weirder results, show me bro-science results." All they have to do is create a Fitness only ad network to support themselves and not worry about endless growth. Multiply this by every vertical.
That could be goofy, and I'm thinking outloud with no filter. But the point is, things can't keep worsening like this forever, not for us, before we find other platforms to take advantage of or even create our own platforms.
Or we can wise up and start thinking like marketers instead of SEO's. Just food for thought for newcomers.
Bloomberg released a post today called:
Google’s Top Search Results Spotlight a Narrowing of the Open Web
It's so short the entire thing can be included here:
"Among the 100 most common searches, a Google product or service is the top result 29 times.
As big tech companies prepare for showdowns over their power in 2020, this list of the top 100 monthly U.S. Google searches—alphabetically from “airbnb” to “zillow”—outlines a way the open web has been filtered through a handful of sites. Google’s top suggestion is a Google page or service in 29 of the 100 cases, including for “news,” “nba,” and “calculator,” according to consultant Ahrefs Ltd. (To be fair, at least 12 searches are for Google products.) DuckDuckGo, a more privacy-oriented search engine, offers broader recs."
If I was Ahref's I'd be mad I didn't get a freaking dofollow backlink out of this since the entire post is like 100 words and then their own data.In the post you'll find this image, the meat of the entire post:
You could call this the "spine of the internet." These are the big players who get the bulk of traffic from Google. Nobody is surprised (think of all the anti-trust investigations) that Google recommends itself somehow on 29 of the top 100 results as the best option (let alone the 2nd, 3rd, etc.).
Nine other companies make up the bulk of the results for non-branded and even branded terms for other companies. 41 times you'll get the actual brand you searched for (versus their parent company).
In only two instances do you get other sites. One is 123movies, which I assume is some illegal streaming site on bulletproof hosting somewhere in Asia, and "youtube to mp3" a generic search term.
What are the Implications for SEO?
Branding
Obviously, branding is everything in a spam-filled search world. Google will only continue to give more weight to brands, more weight to contextual links, more weight to age. Why not? It's a simple way to provide quality.
But that means there's an extreme lack of diversification in the SERPs, which we've all complained about at one time or another. I used to visit 100's of sites back in the day of directories, blog wheels, blog carnivals, etc. Now I have a little routine of like 3 sites a day, plus a few other brands I go to directly when I'm bored at night.
This is entirely because I don't discover new sites on Google. I get the same old controlled, "safe" (agenda driven) sites. It's no surprise to me that I spend time on sites that are like forums, where other people aggregate and curate interesting content for me to see. I simply don't search enough to find it. Even on Youtube I stick to the recommendations on the homepage since they crippled the sidebar and search.
Traffic Leaking
You get to a site these days in 3 ways: 1) Google Search, 2) Direct Visits, 3) Social Sharing. Number one is great if you can pull it off. I'm not at all saying "SEO is Dead" or anything of the sort. But obviously the bulk of traffic is going direct to certain sites or to those sites through search.
We can sit on our hands trying to get traffic from search too, or we can go take advantage of other platforms with tons of users (Facebook, Reddit, etc.) This is the best way to improve your performance in search and make money in the immediate moment. Every time you leak, you create a backlink or a social share. If you do good, others see that and see the validation and end up sharing it or posting it on their own sites.
Journalists don't do any real work these days. I'd venture to say there's less than 100 real journalists left. The rest are glorified bloggers sitting on Twitter, Reddit, and 4chan rewriting stories other people have found and shared. That can be you. It's like HARO except you have a much better chance to get good placements with validation already occurring.
Paid Advertising
If you can afford it, this is the shortcut. You need to be able to get an ROI if you're not Coca-Cola, but there's no better way to get results now instead of later. I know of a guy who has never built a link to his site but has 100k+ and ranks for enough terms to pull down a million visitors in organic traffic per month. How did he do it? Partially due to the search exposure he got, but it all come from running Facebook ads at $5 a day for a few articles at a time. People see it, share it on Facebook, take it to forums and their own blogs and mention it. Simple and easy, but can be "expensive." ($15 a day, how many days do you piss that away on dumb stuff? Every day?)
-----
I don't think things will get better for Google Search and SEO on Google. These other big sites have search algorithms too, you know? How many people are gaming Amazon's search, Facebook's search, and even sites like Fiverr?
How long until we get vertical-specific search engines? What if there was a Fitness search engine that showed 20 results from 20 different domains, and perhaps even gave options for searchers like "show me less popular sites, show me weirder results, show me bro-science results." All they have to do is create a Fitness only ad network to support themselves and not worry about endless growth. Multiply this by every vertical.
That could be goofy, and I'm thinking outloud with no filter. But the point is, things can't keep worsening like this forever, not for us, before we find other platforms to take advantage of or even create our own platforms.
Or we can wise up and start thinking like marketers instead of SEO's. Just food for thought for newcomers.
