I returned to the office today after being away on vacation to find a letter and decal from Google recognizing our company as a “Favorite Place on Google.”  The letter reads in part“Because you’re so popular, we’re enclosing a window decal that shows customers you’re a ‘Favorite Place on Google.’ The sticker includes a special bar code that potential customers may scan with cameras on their phones.  Then they can see your business listing on Google, read and write reviews, and add you as a favorite right there.”

There’s only one problem,  after a Google employee Brian B apparently lied lacked the information necessary to give an accurate answer to queries about the problem back in November about how there was a bug keeping web site design and marketing firms from showing up; Google employee Joel H of the “Geo Consumer Operations Team” has now admitted in the same thread as Brian B that the manipulation of Web firm listings in search is intentional.

I’ll give the usual disclaimer that we’re constantly working on improving the user experience and results will vary over time. So, this could change in the future, but I wanted to be explicit about what we’re doing today.

Matt McGee, over at Search Engine Land, points out that nearly identical searches with the exception of the word “in” return entirely different results.

Here’s a screen shot of the results for Website Design in Mountain View Ca

Do the same search but drop the word “in” and sure enough the local 7 pack disappears Google and all.

Mike Blumenthal, who writes one of the definitive blogs on Google Maps, has posted some good questions that I would love to hear answers for from Google even if they did treat themselves the same as their treating everyone else with a listing for Website Design

Though Google is not transparent about how it ranks sites, what is known is that a large part of Google’s ranking algorithm is based on the popularity of a Website.  They’ve been doing this based at least in part on links.  Now the truth about links is that they are very, very susceptible to manipulation.  Google has decided to fight people buying links, reciprocal linking and directory links, but in spite of this there remain dozens of ways to get links that have nothing to do with what another Website owner things of the site it is linking to.

At some point if their idea for personalized search takes off and they get a lot of people voting one site up over another it is going to become far to tempting for them not to add or even make this a primary factor in their ranking.  Is that a bad thing?  Not necessarily, but many people believe it is an elite group of users who are most likely to use this feature, so an elite group may be determining what all are seeing.

The prudent thing seo is to start using this tool.  Vote your own site up and have your network vote your site up too.  As always be smart about this and how you do it.

SearchWiki for Increasing Visitors

One of the features of the SearchWiki is the ability to make comments about a site.  Those comments are available to anyone else looking at the results for that site.  Thus what you say and how you say it can play a role in getting other to move your site, or a site you comment on, up in their search results.  Obviously, you should comment well on Websites you want to make popular.  Another thing to keep in mind is that people like sites that other people like so more positive comments on your site can only help you in the long run.

Is Personal Search Good for Personal Use

Given the advice above about having your networks vote you up you might think that I am going to say yes, but in reality I don’t think this is the case at all. When you use personal search and the SearchWiki to move a site up or out of the list you move it permenantly for your results.  Do new better sites ever come along?  Yes, everyday and any user using personal search limits what they see. Sure you can log out of your account to see what the world is seeig, or if you’re like me with two screens and three or four browsers on your computer you can easily jump between the results.  The reality for most users is they don’t have two screens and several browsers and signing in and out of accounts is just too much of a bother.

Now that you’ve got my opinions here’s what Google has to say about their new SearchWiki

This is why you will sometimes see the local search results with their Google map to the left in the middle of the page though most often you see it at the top.  They are attempting to find out what the optimal location is to get us to click on these results and probably especially on their map which they are wanting to get more action on as it is currently second fiddle to Yahoo!

You’ll notice the same with their product search.  They move it around from top to middle to bottom.

When you think about it, it makes complete sense.  Google is by far the largest online marketer.  The other day a friend pointed out that while Google may have started out a search company they are actually an advertising company.  I had never thought of it this way before, but it made a lot of sense and when put in that perspective it can really shine a light on what Google is doing.