SEO Runs Both Ways: The Negative Side of Search

By Blaire Townshend

The benefits of Search Engine Optimization have been touted far and wide, and rightly so. When SEO is implemented effectively, these benefits can be profound. Increased customer impressions, brand exposure, improved click through rates - the list goes on. Needless to say, search should be an important consideration for the digital strategists of all politicians currently campaigning in the presidential race. However, what happens when such exposure is actively used against you?

The most obvious example at the moment is the much-discussed term "Drumpf" - associated with Republican hopeful Donald Trump - which has become a sensation online to such an extent that the term "Donald Drumpf" now precedes that of "Donald Trump" in a Google search. Though this is not a phrase supported or endorsed by that candidate, it has overtaken his presence on Google through sheer popularity. This development epitomizes the democratic underpinnings of Google's algorithms, reminding us that SEO is based on visitor-generated interest.

Now, consider the impact of phrases and associations actively cultivated or endorsed by people with specific agendas. In a way, "Drumpf" stems from such an agenda - talk show host John Oliver brought the phrase to prominence in an effort to mock Donald Trump, encouraging his viewers to utilize it as well. Oliver's actions in fact mirror those of another host, five years ago - in 2011 Stephen Colbert actively encouraged viewers to click on links that brought up content linking Republican candidate Rick Santorum to inappropriate sexual material. Colbert was not even the instigator of this effort. It was columnist Dan Savage who originally "tie[d] Santorum's name with an...unpleasant sexual definition...and then 'Google bomb[ed]' the Republican until the new term became the top search result for 'Rick Santorum'" (Detrow 2.25.16).

Regardless of the origin of such efforts, it is fascinating to see the ability of one or two people to so drastically affect the search horizons of another. Each of these three (Oliver, Colbert, and Savage) knowingly use or used knowledge of how search engine optimization works to sabotage the search results of politicians - deploying the democratic forces of the internet citizenry against those campaigners they wished to impede. Understanding that Google uses click through rates, choice of search terms, and site visits as indicators of demand (and therefore value) thus becomes a powerful political tool, capable of manipulating the system to achieve political ends. In an already chaotic political arena, such machinations make the game increasingly complex.

Detrow, Scott. "How Do You Solve A Google Problem Like Rick Santorum's?" New Hampshire Public Radio. 25 Feb. 2016. Web. 5 Mar. 2016. 

The most trusted name in news is... Google?

This week the public relations firm Edelman released a report showing that online search is now a more trusted source of news and information than traditional news media. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, this effect was even more pronounced among millenials.

At this point, you are probably a little confused. Google isn't a news outlet. It does not generate content or track down leads. How can Google be a more trusted news source than an actual news site? What's going on here?

Well, here is how I have been thinking about this.  As more news media moves online, users are more comfortable consuming their news and information entirely from the internet, but as with most things on the internet, we want choice! (After all, have you ever searched for a relatively specific search term, but still felt annoyed or let down when the search engine only returns one or two relevant hits?) Users are no longer limited to the magazines to which they can afford to subscribe or to their local news stations. More sources, more details, and more viewpoints are becoming better. As Quartz explains: "Getting an at-a-glance look at a wide range of stories deemed relevant by a search-engine algorithm—be they from traditional news outlets, blogs, advertisements, and much else besides—is more comforting to the curious reader, it seems, than simply pulling up a single news outlet’s site." And given the inherent biases of so many news outlets these days, perhaps this approach is actually more balanced overall... but that is a discussion for another blog.

So what does this mean for digital marketing and for search engines? Well, on the one hand, this trust gives search a level of credibility and power with consumers, making paid search and search engine optimization even more valuable as marketing tools. Users clearly trust the algorithms to effectively curate their worldview, so imagine how much more likely they are to select an ad or a site that was picked for them and presented as highly and specifically relevant. On the other hand, this revelation should serve as a warning to companies like Google not to overdo it or to lose sight of their core competency. If advertising is not judiciously vetted and well matched to users or if search results become too easily manipulated by crack marketing teams, search engines could lose that valuable trust as quickly as they earned it.

Consumers trust Google's news algorithm more than traditional media organizations
Google is now a more trusted source of news than the websites it aggregates

SEO Quake for FF

Just a quick note--I've been doing a lot of pagerank research at my internship and SEO Quake, a plugin for your browser is fabulously good for this. And they finally released it for Firefox (in our lecture notes it's only for Internet Explorer).

It takes a little tweaking but you can rig this up in preferences so that a page of Google search results will list Pagerank and a whole lot of other metrics next to each URL. Extremely handy when you need to do a quick survey of a keyword/phrase.

Happy SEOing.

SEO for Small Businesses

Small- and medium-sized companies often resist spending on online advertising due to their limited marketing budgets and need for help when it comes to managing ad spending. For the same reasons, most ad agencies and media companies are reluctant to work with these companies because the revenues rarely warrant the costs. ProfitFuel, however, is one of the few companies that has been able to gather enough spending from small companies to make business with them worthwhile. (www.paidcontent.org, David Kaplan, May 24, 2011) Offering search engine optimization services to small businesses, the company was acquired this past May by Yodle, a US online marketing firm. With its product and sales force of 300 people, ProfitFuel is expected to extend Yodle’s customer base to small businesses. This deal is particularly interesting because it shows how sophisticated online marketing tools like SEO, once restricted to e-commerce giants, is now an option for almost any business regardless of its size or brand.

On the lighter side... Search Marketing

Another way to optimize your search marketing....

Search Engine Optimization Basics

A pretty useful article on SEO basics.

While the nature of marketing web sites has continually evolved from a focus on optimizing text to include an array of media optimization such as images, audio, video and content delivery formats like RSS and mobile, there continues to be a significant value in basic SEO.

In many cases, small businesses or small web sites especially, there’s a lot the site owner or webmaster/developer can do to improve the search engine friendliness of the site, i.e. fundamental content optimization, before pursuing outside help. However, those that do end up outsourcing on-page optimization and link building often do so because of a lack of resources or the desire to leverage expert experience to avoid big mistakes that can end up costing more to fix than a SEO consultant in the first place...

http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/10/search-engine-optimization-basics/