Search Engine Optimisation

Google has put a great deal of effort into preserving its motto of “do no evil”. The recent news that Google may (but probably won’t) be  pulling out of China completely due to China’s censorship laws is, I believe, at best a cover for the fact that they can’t stand being the second largest market share holder in the world’s largest market.

Western Internet companies (including Google) often fail to break into the Chinese market because they simply fail to understand the different culture over there. You only have to watch a couple of Chinese TV shows to realise how different it is to our western one. Imagine the problems setting up the branch of a multinational business over there. So bearing this in mind, Google needed a way of pulling out (or at least reducing its services) without losing face and admitting defeat.

That’s not to say that China didn’t try to hack Google. It’s just that if its business over there was doing better than a 20 percent market share for internet search, Google would happily ignore it.

The bottom line is, no matter what they claim, this isn’t about helping the Chinese people. It’s about making money from them. If it was about morals, Google would not have gone to China in the first place.

Simon Davies
SEO Programmer

Google has introduced a new way of personalising search results. We have noticed personalised results as part of being logged into a Gmail account and also depending on IP address Google will show results it knows you have chosen to go to before. The new stars that are showing in results will allow users to save preferred results for future reference (bookmarking essentially), so that they show up at the top of the listings when making the same search next time.

How it Works

The new method of bookmarking will show a little star outline next to the search results. If a user clicks on the star it will save the result so that when the user repeats the search they get their favoured results listed above the organic, regular results. The starred results will synchronise with Google Toolbar and Bookmarks so that they can be managed and organised in one place. Google News will also see the Star feature incorporated so you can save favourite articles.

The introduction of the Google Stars bookmarking feature has also spelled the end of Search Wiki. This feature enabled users to customise the rankings and make notes on each one. Google obviously see the star feature as a dramatic improvement on Search Wiki, completely replacing it and now allowing even more customisation for search results.

It is yet to be seen how popular this feature will become but there is nothing to suggest it won’t be widely used and be the benchmark for search engine personalisation.

Rob Bromilow
Natural SEO Programmer