If you want to be prepared for the Google Co-Op, I have a suggestion. Because web page clusters on a given topic are isolated with wildcards, I recommend that you include a common term in the URL according to the natural topic divisions on your website. For instance, your site may be widgets.com. You have several pages about widget history, widgets for sale, widget plans. Name your files: widgets.com./plan1.html widgets.com./plan2.html widgets.com./plan3.html The plans will be isolated as widgets.com/plan* Or: widgets.com./2345#item.html widgets.com./5653#item.html widgets.com./2678#item.html The widgets for sale will be isolated as widgets.com/*#item.html Or: widgets.com./medievalhistory.html widgets.com./historygothicperiod.html The history pages will be isolated as widgets.com/*history* Note that if you have a few pages of lesser relevance, such as a link page, the practice above might actually result in it not being included. Too early to tell whether the Google Co-Op will have any importance in terms of rankings, but it might in terms of traffic. Something to consider when naming files for your next website.
Google Co-Op It's the seeds for a new Directory that Google is building, if I understand the concept correctly. It is quite new. If it works, and it might take time, I believe it has the potential of replacing the DMOZ dinosaur. The approach is fresh and dynamic, and based on webpages to which a relevance score is manually issued by the editor. There is also a Google-flavored "democracy" component, where people can subscribe to the listings of some editors, resulting in increased importance of the listings and inclusion in the Directory. Think of it as electing good editors
More, and better targetted traffic, immediately come to mind. I have endured the frustration of creating a quality web site that was long buried under those a several, aggressive webmasters. I have endured the frustration of not finding a site even with targetted search terms. It gives me great pleasure to bring some excellent websites at the forefront, that otherwise might not make it in the top 300 sites. I know the websites in my topic better than anyone. I am the best person for the job. I live on the web, I live off the web, I like to make it a better place. It's about time that an alternative to the obsolete DMOZ was created, and I want to contribute to making it a success.
Hmm, I don't like it. It feels like the old Yahoo. The great thing about organic results, as a searcher you can feel like you are discovering something new, original, emerging. I think if people wanted to be spoonfed typical links they wouldn't be using Google in the first place--they would just go to the established authority on a topic, or just go to B&N or Borders. I suppose it depends on the topic. Maybe they are jealous of Clusty
It's working tremedoulsy well in my area. The organic results do not reflect the actual relevance of the websites. Many of the very best ones (and no, they're not all mine! ) are buried very deep in the SERPs. My goal is to improve the search experience in my topic. Everyone benefits. I think of it as promoting a whole topic, instead of only my subset of websites.
If there is a way to abuse it, people will. They'll create armies of bots to choose and promote their own article clusters or some crap. Give it a week.
This is Google getting on the social bookmarking bandwagon, rather than a directory. Social bookmarking can be spammed, just the same as the regular SERPs.
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but I think the purpose of the social bookmarking is to form a Directory.