What would you say if we told you that your own preconceptions about Google and the Internet are holding you back, costing you money and keeping you in the dark? You might say that we’re nuts. We’re not.
Raise your hand if you have heard someone say, “I can get anything I need on Google.” Now raise your hand if you’ve said it yourself. Thanks, you may put your hands down now.
The preconception that Google finds everything you need is the topic of one of our recent blog articles, “Can You Speak the Language of the 21st Century?” Read it and you’ll find out that the best search engines (including Google) actually reach only a tiny fraction of the Internet’s vast information.
Here’s another preconception. It’s the one that says that Google shows you the best stuff. They don’t. You just think they do.
When You Want to Find the Very Best
Here’s a cautionary tale that reveals not only the limits of the best search engines, but also how rapidly the entire world of searching the Internet is changing.
The Executive Director of the Colorado Society of Association Executives, Joan Tezak, called us not long ago and asked:
“Can you get me a recommendation for silent auction software? Our current program is getting old and we think there are better programs out there.”
Just so you know, “silent auctions” are a popular and effective way for associations to raise money at their conventions and events.
Now, we know NOTHING about silent auction software. So, like many of you, we did our patriotic duty and logged on to Google. There, we found a host of both paid ads and what are called, somewhat misleadingly, “organic” results, all of which are pictured below:
The organic results were surrounded by those scads of ads that have made Google one of the richest companies in the world. Advertisers pay dearly for the listings that appear above and just to the right of the regular Google results.
The top two companies listed in Google’s organic results were Auction123Software.net and BarCodedAuctions.com.
However, there were a bunch of other possible results and we didn’t have time to research each of them. That made us wonder how else we could quickly get back to Joan with a reliable answer.
Twitter Followers, Do Your Thing
Curious about something we’ve been testing the last few months, I logged on to my @MichaelBenidt Twitter account. There I “tweeted” my followers the question that is shown at the beginning of this blog article. Translated slightly from Twitter language, I wrote:
“Who knew there were so many “silent auction” programs for managing a non-profit’s fundraising event! Let me know if you know of a good one.”
Now, I don’t have that many Twitter followers (around 250 back then). But, in only a couple of minutes, @EilSmi wrote back:
Eileen Smith told us that the Minnesota Council of Health Plans, for whom she serves as Director of Communications and PR, had used AuctionAnything.com for several years – and they loved it.
Think about that. In about the same time it took to get scads of untested results from Google, we were able to get a top level recommendation from a trusted source.
Eileen vs. Google
But what about those top two Google silent auction programs – wouldn’t they be the best? Might Eileen’s program be good, but not very popular? After all, AuctionAnything.com did not even show up on the first page of Google’s healthy organics.
The Baloney Detector
We’ve grown fond of using a free Internet site called Compete.com (we call it the “Baloney Detector“) to test Internet traffic claims. In this case we compared the traffic of the top two Google results to Eileen’s recommendation to see which had the most traffic. Eileen’s won in a walk.
How can that be?! Aren’t the top Google results the best? And, if not, aren’t they the most popular? And, beyond that, if they are neither the most popular nor the best – what the heck are they?
Google, of course, keeps their exact secret sauce under wraps. Experts agree, however, that the top results in Google merely have the most links from other web sites. That’s a little bit of a letdown, if you think about it.
You see, something called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has hit the big time. It promises placement at the top of the Google results page. If those promises are to be believed, then what you find in a Google search has been jiggered by cadres of SEO folks.
The Biggest Threat to Google is You
Does that mean that you shouldn’t use Google? Absolutely not. Does that mean that asking a question on Twitter can replace reliable research? Nope. What it does mean is that we all have to lose our preconceptions about searching the Internet if we’re going to get reliable information quickly.
The fact is that Google is threatened – and not by another search company. It’s threatened by you. Google just might not be able to compete with an informed you, searching for just what you need in just the right place with just the right tools – without preconceptions.
17 comments ↓
This is a brilliant case study of both the limitations of google and the power of the social net. The only caveat is that compete.com can be unreliable for sites without significant traffic or that are highly niched as it relies on extrapolating browsing reports from it’s 2 million members to come up with traffic estimates.
Great article. Food for thought for any PR and marketing firm as well. Typically, when researching vendors, it is best to check compete, quantcast, alexa, and triangulate listings, review demographics, etc., as well as see what other sites the traffic is going to in addition to the site being researched. As the twittersphere continues to grow, social media can be a self-governing consumer reports of sorts to help us differentiate what is a real good product verses a real good SEO job. At some point, Google will probably integrate twittersphere chatter into results and use it as a factor for organic rankings.
Really interesting case study of how there are “hidden” gems on the Internet! You certainly present a good argument for why connecting with people on Twitter and other social media sites is an important tool, particularly for small businesses. Good products and services get talked about which can trigger a viral process. SEO is still important for attracting people who are searching but it can be manipulated. Your article illustrates the importance of having a diversified approach to marketing on the Web.
Michael, great example of how to craft a good tweet to get the word-of-mouth recommendation you needed. Thanks for the example!
Michael –
Great post. I’m always fascinated by the “Google and nothing else” devotees. Anytime you search different sources you get a better understanding of what is out there. Once source will never do…but then again I was a journalism major in college and we always needed a minimum of 2 on the record sources and one other confirmation…so I guess old habits die hard.
And my preferred auction site for non-profits is CMarket.com.
Clearly the artificial intelligence algorithms that Google is using as the basis for search results has a long learning curve ahead.
You’ve done a great job of pointing out some glaring deficiencies in what we think are some “pretty good” search results. However, on a relativity scale comparing today’s searches to the early days of AltaVista and HotBot, most people would agree that the results are “pretty good” in spite of the widespread usage of SEO jerry rigging.
But pretty good is not good enough. Our lives are far too busy to have to read through the BS, often selecting second rate products and services because we didn’t know better.
In many ways this is similar to government contracting where the contracts invariably go to the best proposal writers rather than the people who are most capable of performing on a contract.
I appreciate your clarity here. Thanks for holding their feet to the fire and “raising the bar” and forcing us to demand a better grade of search results.
Thanks Tom, Joe, Elli, Christine, Leanne and Thomas,
If readers click on your names above and follow to your web sites and blogs they’ll see what massive brainpower and wisdom is assembled here. Makes us feel very humble, indeed, that you have taken the time to share your wisdom back.
Readers, click on these folks, read their blogs, follow them, connect to them, hire them. You couldn’t do better.
Really nice post illustrating why social media can be so powerful. With the ever increasing amount of new content generated on the web each minute/hour/day/etc. search engines will become more and more diluted. On the other hand- social media and social networks are becoming “the” place for a person to quickly find vetted answers.
Aaron from compete.com here: Interesting post, and thanks for mentioning Compete. Tom Gray’s point above is spot on – because we provide panel-based metrics, niche sites or sites that have a regional/local focus may not be as well-represented in our data. Having said this, there are still lots of good ways to use the data to drive business decisions.
Hey Michael,
Really great example. Search is evolving towards social factors and Google will have to adapt or die. It’s already trying with SearchWiki but it has proved to be ineffective. With Twitter gaining so much momentum, who knows what the search industry will look like a couple years from now.
[...] ← What Google Doesn’t Know Will Surprise You [...]
Great post gang! Interesting that search.yahoo.com results basically are the same top three. So I did some investigating. The reason Auction123 and BarCoded Auctions show up high in both Google and Yahoo is if you look in both sites’ title tags (use view source), the phrase “silent auction software” is the dominant content and they have well written descriptions and content within the site (although both sites are kind of ugly, the content is very search engine friendly). On the other hand, auctionanything.com has title tags and content related to “online auction software.” If you run both a Yahoo and Google search on “online auction software” our friends at auctionanythign.com show up high (#6). So, this is also a great case study on the power of effective title and description tags within Google.
Thanks Eric, Aaron, Gyutae and Sam,
Another esteemed group of thought leaders – business expert, creator of Compete.com, social media blogger and search expert. Thanks to all of you for keeping the conversation going about Google’s results and how social media may just be the wild card in all of this. Sam’s got great points about title and description tags (wish we understood those!) – and Gyutae is too modest to pitch an article he wrote about the same time we did on a similar topic. His post is called, “6 Reasons Why Twitter is the Future of Search – Google Beware” – and you can find it here – http://www.winningtheweb.com/twitter-future-search-google.php
Excellent case study, Michael. I had something similar when I was diagnosed with celiac disease, although to be fair the results on Google were good, too. But I was amazed at the number of people who tweeted back their recommendations for resources. And for blog search (and knowing what’s on Twitter), Google isn’t the best either.
Thanks Lee,
Wondering if you’d like to write that up as a guest blogger – or can you link us to something you wrote about it? It would make a fascinating study. Thanks for your contribution to the discussion.
Very interesting post!! At Netbriefings I have convinced our team to work on some interfaces to our webcasting tools and Twitter. There are numerous team member that think I am crazy!! However, every time I switch on the TV I hear Twitter, now you are telling me it is a great place to find content and to collaborate! Hum.. webcasting and collaboration sounds like a good idea? I wil pass this on to our team. Thanks
Thanks Gary,
For those who don’t know Gary, he’s doing innovative things himself with his company http://www.Netbriefings.com. We’ve talked to “experts” in many fields lately who’ve simply dismissed things like Twitter out of hand. We may or may not have to like it, but dismissing it is like dismissing the Internet these days. So, your team members will come along, don’t worry.
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