Google Universal Search and how it will affect Webmasters

Google seems to ignore alts, in my opinion.
You search for pics of celebrities and at times 25% are pictures of someone else.

 

It just seems that Google alters its algorithm according to web 2.0 phenomenon

 

It seems to me that they've been moving in this direction for a long time. For example, when you search for a location you now find Google maps data at the top of the search. The same goes for news. Bringing it all together is possibly the next logical step.

 

Agree - the impact will vary greatly from verticle to verticle. Exciting times!

 

the search result will be compete with picture, video, news, content... maybe webmaster could use all above for SEO..

 

Any one wants to see the beautiful face of Matt Cutts??
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=webmaster+tools+google&btnG=Search

This is insane...

 

Though Yahoo! and Live have fallen on face against Google. But by the time internet users have created a 'new rival' for Google. This rival is non-conventional and not from search industry. Its from human 2 human relationship industry .. ah right thats social networks (including news networks).

Google is now trying to survive against that new rival no new story imho.

But fight between two elephants will definitely hurt grass.

Google will give equal weight to all video and image sites?

 

thats cause the alt tags are misleading sometimes by webmasters...but in the end alt tags still major factor in pic seo

 

Couldn't agree more with you Mong.. Certainly Social networking sites, and innovative creations like Second life has created a new marketing scenarios.
Google, who initiated Web 2.0 now taking steps to remain on Top in Web 2.0 era..

 

this does make sense a little, i mean by making all search genres in 1 page doesn't really constitute google as being web 2.0.

but even if you make videos on youtube, you cant place a link to ur site, so it wont help traffic too much

 

Here it is for a search of shoes... showing 2 videos in top 5.
I just saw this 5 minutes prior to this post. Basically same as I saw for a celebrity search the other day.

 

both of those videos are the same thing.... quality.

 

"Darth vader" pulls that up as well. If -that- is the new google layout. I really don't have a problem with it. It keeps the real results there, just enhances the video results. Which is fine. I just don't want the actual results pushed below videos or what not.

 

As a user this sounds like it might be quite useful. As a webmaster, things are definitely going to get trickier.

Might have to have 5 sites in place of one. A blog, a picture site, a video site, a store and an information site.

wheeewww!

Notting

 

I believe youtube pulled rank for "shoes" before this though. This is just putting a video of the image next to the SERP.

 

Hmm, I frequently do celebrity searches and the one I saw was not the "normal" search I see now when I do it. I was looking up "renee olstead" when I saw at least 2 google videos (not youtube) in the top 10. I copied the embed code for one to use. Now, when I search that term, no videos or links to videos show at all. I think there was also news links on the first search but I can't recall precisely.

I think this is more that just adding an image, they are new results infused with news/images/video. It is hard to tell when I can't get it to repeat.

 

i have looked this site. it's showing results with a nice way. it's extra results are on rigth side of the site but Google is showing before the content or inside the content. this results are forcing the main content to move so footer of the page

if it want to add extra results like images,videos etc, it must do this with a nice way but google has choosen the

 

personally i think either

we're going to have to become masters of related phrases as one example cited by Google says that on searching for Darth Vader you'd also get results for James Earl Jones... which i found interesting

or otherwise the results will become too confusing for users and they'll migrate elsewhere... currently with the Google local listings on top of the natural results im finding it annoying enough without other unrelated rubbish littering the results... if i want to search for images or video ill SELECT THE DAMNED TAB myself without google deciding for me!!!

its annoying because google won the search engin 'war' because the other search engines went portalified whilst google remained simple and to the point... now it appears that theyre heading the same way!

mark

 

With this step they are of course making the Seo world a much more interesting place. No doubt about that.

They are also minding their business well with this step since the stock market reacted positively after the news was released.

I believe this step will make the average Joe user more happy with the results he gets since he gets all the important stuff on one page.

I can also see who will win this new race: The ones with really creative ideas for content on their sites. We will all have to actually start working on the quality - seen from an end users standpoint much, much more.

The last time I tried to actually find something via Google I just gave up. With this new approach from Google's side I might be more lucky.

 

A couple things of note:

1) Television viewers on the major networks dropped by about 15% this year over last - this is a sign of the times
2) Media advertising is a multi-billion dollar a month industry
3) People are turning to the internet for entertainment. Just look at the hype surrounding Joost.
4) Google makes their money by selling advertising
5) More media results like videos, pics, etc. means that "real" websites will drop slightly
6) Because of that drop, webmasters will spend more money on AdWords advertising

What it boils down to is advertising dollars, and Google wants them. Google may have had heart at one time, but they've changed a lot since the IPO. The accountants are ruling the roost at Google, just like any other large corporation.

Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age...