SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is becoming more and more difficult nowadays. Other than the obvious fact that there are lots of search engines, several big ones (the ubiquitous Google included), and also meta search engines and a host of other complications.

Now it’s becoming more common for search engines to have their own “sliders” for manipulating the search results. Google has Personalized Search (Beta) and others like MSN Search has something like this too.

When you think Google’s Personalized Search or “Search the Web” or “Search only in…” or SafeSearch are the only ones manipulating your results, well I thought the same way… But was I ever been more wrong:

• Google “tiki jne” in English language: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tiki+jne

• Google “tiki jne” in Indonesian language: http://www.google.com/search?hl=id&q=tiki+jne

When Google says “language”, I thought it means “user interface language”. But I never thought it would alter the search results as well. Go ahead and try it.

This has quite some implications. Since “Google in your language” has been here for a very, very long time (and many people are using localized Google unintentionally), it’s very true that the results you see in your language (or default English) will be entirely different than what the rest of the world sees.

And from what I looked for, it seems there’s no way to change this behavior (i.e. setting language to Indonesian but using the universal search results). As more and more things get personalized, you know there’ll be nothing universal in the future.

Conclusion

I’m not sure how to conclude. This may be good or may be bad. It sure is bad for some people, but I guess it’s a blessing for many others. Since Google and other search engines are more into this type of stuff in the near future, and they’re the experts, this has to be the way it should be. Even AdWords and AdSense are becoming more and more personal over time.

SEO is getting trickier, but it’s also getting easier at the same time because the search engine maker guys are making it easier for you to target YOUR personalized potential customers without you knowing it. I think that’s a win-win-win solution (win for you, win for your customers, and win for search engines).

Technorati : google, internet, search, search engine, seo, web
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This entry was posted on Friday, November 3rd, 2006 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Beginner, Complaints, Opinions, Tips, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.