Date Originally Published: April 12, 2005

Google’s United States Patent Application was released on March 31st 2005 and this 30 page document gives the S.E.M. community a lot more to think about. I think it would of been a lot funnier if they waited until April 1st (April fools day) just to mess with everyone.

Anyways, is this a war against the S.E.M. community or against spam? It seems at times that its geared directly towards the S.E.M. community, but I feel that the the goal with the search engines (with the free listings) is to provide the most relevant results and improve the users experience in the process. The sponsored side is a totally different issue, but that will be later on. So essentially the main target is Spam, but in the process, the S.E.M. community has been hit hard as of late.

On to the the patent, first of all if you have happened to read anything on the actual patent, and you are  wondering about Search Engine 125, if you go to the .com url, this is not associated with Google in anyway. If you check the whois record, you will clearly see that it was registered on March 31st, 2005 and not by Google. If Google really wanted that url they surely would of registered it. In a way it seems like a test to see who would take it and what would they do with it, just like expired domains and those supposedly great search engines and sites we never heard of.

When I first started reading about this patent, one of the first things that I thought about was the url and is it free, but that sort of quick rich scheme is not something that I am interested in, nor would I want to get branded that way either. I’m not saying that I don’t want to get rich, but I like to put my time and money into something that will provide long term benefits and that is spam free.

All in all, I feel this is a great move for the search engines. This will hopefully deter the get rich quick schemes and spam filled search engine results pages (SERPS). (If you ever wondered what SERPS meant, now you do). I long for the days when spam was something that you only saw on a can in your cupboard, not that I would have it in mine.

The only thing that I do not like with this new approach with Google, is that a lot of new innocent bystander sites get caught in this fiasco with Google trying to improve the results in the search engines. It is making it a lot harder for the smaller guys or late comers to the world of search marketing to succeed. Especially if they are impatient. With Google having such a big percentage of the actual search traffic volume, they can literally make or break a business that is dependent on the search engines. But on the bright side, this does make the market somewhat a tad bit more secure for those that are already established, or those that are willing to wait it out.

The Need to Push Local Search

One thing that I would like to see is Yahoo and Google pushing Local Search on TV ads. This is something that will greatly improve peoples search experience, and I feel will catch on. Personally, I’d rather go to Google or Yahoo use their local search rather than shift through the yellow pages to find something.

Once Local search takes off, and Yahoo incorporates local search for us up in Canada, hopefully this will encourage the local business to see the benefits of the internet, and that it is worthwhile to grow their business to the internet.

The Move to Yahoo and MSN Search

I have to admit that with Yahoo and MSN Search both launching their own search databases, I am greatly enjoying the option of being able to get different results (from different databases) from the top 3 search engines. Still MSN Search is in last place at the moment, but Yahoo only gets second spot really because its my current homepage (My Yahoo!).

My loyalty towards Google in the last year is lowering as I am finding results with Yahoo and MSN more often now. I feel it is only a matter of time before people begin to slowly change. MSN is pushing their new MSN Search the past few months and this is great. People will hopefully start to use the other search engines more often now.

A War with Paid Advertising?

Now, the war with the Search Engines and Paid Advertising Firms is real I’m afraid. In one of the forums lately, one of the moderators reported about a marketer that took the Google AdWords test, passed and certified was told that they could not handle this large PPC client. I have to say this was extremely surprising. For the longest time since Google started offering this certification a few months ago, it was the talk of the S.E.M.Community, but now, those that do not have it I would assume are far happier now. Those not in the program do not have to report to their Google rep with their new account.

At this time I would assume that Google would only really be interested in the really big money makers with PPC ad buyers and the big PPC firms. Its almost like taking out the middle man. Sounds good right? But, you have to remember that someone working outside of Google or MSN/Yahoo for that matter, their goal is to minimize your total expenditure with your paid advertising and increase your traffic and hits. For myself, I would feel far more comfortable with a good PPC firm than a Google/MSN/Yahoo rep. To me their goal is to make their search engine more revenue while the PPC firm with PPC is to find the most cost effective way to increase traffic to my site and make that all important sale.

So, all in all, things have taken a very interesting twist lately and I have to admit it does make things interesting on my side of the table, adds drama I guess.

Interesting Articles and views on Google’s New Patent From the S.E.M. Community

• Google Patent – Analyzed – From ThreadWatch.com
• Google United – Google Patent Examined
• Highlights – This is straight to the point