Matt Cutts: Google Probably Won’t Call PageRank Something Else

Update: Matt Cutts says they probably won't rename PageRank. However, he agrees with Peter Norvig that people obsess about it too much.

Original article: Last year, Google quietly got rid of PageRank in Webmaster Tools. Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa had said, "We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it."

Note: Watch our exclusive interview with Google's Matt Cutts at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern at live.webpronews.com.

A lot of people wondered why Google would keep PageRank in the Google Toolbar, where it still sits to this day. Search enthusiast Barry Schwartz of Rusty Brick speculated that Google would not want to remove it because PageRank is "too much of their branding." After some words from Google's Director of Research, Peter Norvig today, however, I'm not so sure that's the case.

Note: Watch Norvig's keynote address here (or view our liveblog of the event), and our exclusive interviw with him here:

Norvig said at SMX today that PageRank is still one thing that is "overhyped," and that Google never felt that it was such a big factor. They have always looked at all available data, combining every available signal and tiring to figure out the best way to combine them.

Norvig also said that it may be time for some re-branding with regard to PageRank. There may be a different term in the pipeline. "There's a technical formula that's PageRank, which is the way of judging the links between pages, and that's just one component of how we rank the pages and you get your final search results. There's all these other things that come in, but they don't have a catchy name. So some people apply PageRank to mean all the components that give you the final ranking, and that's where we get confused. So probably we need some other term for that...We'll get some marketing guys on it."

I don't know how seriously the company is considering this, as Norvig seems to simply be speaking off the cuff, but given the company's repeated emphasis on a lack of emphasis on PageRank, it would not be surprising to see them change the name. However, the problem with that could be, that these same PR-obsessed webmasters would just become obsessed with the re-branded term.

WebProNews will be doing a live interview with Google's Matt Cutts today at 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern at live.webpronews.com. Perhaps he will offer his thoughts on the subject.

Do you think PageRank needs a different name? What would you call it? Give your suggestions here.

Google Talks Marketing Implications of Social Search

It's no secret that Google delivers personalized search results on a user-by-user basis. In fact, software engineer Bryan Horling reportedly said at SMX West in Santa Clara that Google personalizes as much as 20 percent of any user's web searches, which would be one in five searches. One way that Google personalizes search results is with its social search feature, which it launched in January. At SMX, WebProNews discussed this feature with Google's Johanna Wright.

If you follow the search industry very closely, you are probably aware of what social search does, but in case you're not, it simply injects content from people within your "social circle" into your search results for relevant queries. For example, if you searched for "iPad," and you had a friend who recently posted an iPad review to his/her blog, there is a good chance that would show up on the first page of your results. This is Google's way of placing relevance on who you know. If you know someone, you're more likely to trust their content than that of a stranger (or at least trust yourself on whether or not to trust them).

WebProNews asked Wright what kind of implications social search has for marketers. She says there aren't many, but she would give more general tips like making good content people want to read, following Google's webmaster guidelines, and using webmaster tools to make sure you're indexed. She did also suggest going to code.google.com and checking out Google's Social Graph API if you have social elements on your own site. That is explained in the following clip.

When Google's social search launched, I recommended businesses consider the following tips, as social search could be considered just another part of your social media marketing strategy. It means staying connected with customers.

1. Make sure you have all of your important links on your Google Profile.
2. Make as many connections as possible.
3. Encourage customers to follow you via social networks.
4. Participate in social media so people will engage with you.
5. Encourage sharing of content (there are plenty available social media buttons)
6. Include social network info on business cards/signage, etc.
7. Include social network info in your online advertising
8. There are probably many more worthwhile tips (if you have any, share them in the comments).

Probably the most important thing to remember here is that people are always likely to be seeing different search results when they perform searches on Google. Getting good rankings just isn't as cut and dry as it used to be. Social search is only one way Google personalizes search results. Location is another. I would expect Google to continue looking at ways to make results more relevant to individual users as time goes on.

Do you take social search into consideration for your strategy? Discuss this here.

Google Tool Shows Where the Eyeballs Go on Your Site

Google has launched a new Google Labs experiment called Browser Size, which is a tool aimed at helping webmasters see how others view their site. Google's official description of the tool says:

Ever wondered what parts of your site can't be seen without scrolling? Browser Size shows you what portion of users can see a give spot on the screen. This is not screen resolution but the area available to the browser - as gathered from www.google.com users.

Here is what it looks like:



"In a newspaper, the most important story is featured on the front page," says Google Senior Software Engineer, Bruno Bowden. "If it's a really important piece, then it's placed 'above the fold,' which means you can find it on the top half of the first page — the bottom half is folded behind and isn't readily seen when you first look at the newspaper."

"The same concept applies to browsers as well," he adds. "There's no clear line for "above the fold" on a browser — there are many different sizes of monitors, browsers are not always full screen and other things like toolbars can take up space. Consider a 'Donate' button on a non-profit site. If it's far down the page, you may not see it when you first view the page. You can of course scroll downwards, but many people don't scroll and will miss it entirely."

To use the tool, simply enter your URL and it will insert your page into the graph showing the percentage of people who are likely to see each area. Don't be surprised if a lot of websites suddenly start shifting to the left.

The tool was one of Google's "20% time" projects. A post on the Google Code blog has some interesting details about how the project came about and grew to what it is.


Have You Read This?

> Duplicate Content Owners Catch a New Break from Google

> Google Makes it Easier to Tell Where Results Originate From

> Google Ditches PageRank in Webmaster Tools

Be Proactive to Avoid Duplicate Content Issues

Google may have busted the "duplicate content myth" a while back, saying that you don't technically get "penalized" for it, but that doesn't mean it is a good thing. Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive says you should care about it so that your better pages are available to rank.

Search engines don't always get it right, so you have to be proactive. She says, "Being proactive is crucial." Make sure search engines are indexing the right thing. We've discussed tips for this in the past, based on advice from Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Things to consider include:

- Consistency
- Site navigation/url structure
- canonicalization
- robots.txt file
- robots exclusion tag
- sitemap submission

Come up with clear URL structure and architecture so that it is easier to not deliver duplicate content. Use Web analytics software and webmaster tools.

If you have duplicate content, your competitors can outrank you, but Thurow says, "The number 1 reason you should care about duplicate content is the user experience."

Here's a helpful video from Google on the duplicate content subject in case you have not seen it before:

According to Ask.com, duplicate content can mean:

2 pages that contain exact text content
2 pages contain similar text content
2 pages are visually similar

Article Syndication and Duplicate Content

Article syndication has often brought up concerns of duplicate content. According to Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting, there is a good side to syndication, which is that it is a great way to get links and visibility.

"Syndicating content is one of the primary tactics used for link building," he notes.

When exact copies are syndicated, problems can arise. Search engines only want to show one copy of a piece of content, and they usually show the original author. You can syndicate a synopsis and not the whole article, but this only works if you content is authoritative, Enge says.

If you must syndicate exact article to other site MUST link back to original article engines may interpret, but it may fail, he says.

Abby Johnson contributed to this report from Search Engine Strategies Chicago.


Have You Read This?

> Duplicate Content on Google, Bing & Yahoo

> Google Busts the Duplicate Content Myth

> Internationalizing Without Duplicate Content Worries

Next Page »