Google and SearchWiki

Saturday... and it's starting to get cold.

I think as you get older you really start to hate the cold weather in New England. Why don't people leave and go south (many do, I suppose). I'm here for awhile but will go to warmer climes, at least somewhere where the cold isn't 120 days long, before too long.

So this week Google launched it's SearchWiki customizable search engine results page tool.

Say what?

Google now will let people, who have and use a Google account, when searching for stuff at Google, adjust, edit, reposition, notate, delete, and save... the results, from a search engine results page (SERP), when they search.

This means they can save the results they like or delete the results they don't.

Yup... if someone doesn't like your website they can banish you forever from their search results (for the keywords/phrases they used to search).

It's important to understand... the results can be removed/deleted from THEIR search results - and then only when they are logged into their Google Account.

Let me put it another way... if people, who have a Google Account, and are logged into it, search and find your website because it is top ranked, they can remove your website/link from their search engine results, for a particular keyword or keyword phrase.

Let me try one more way... if I'm logged into my Google Account (and I almost always am), and I do a search and websites come up in the search engine results page that I don't want to see... I can remove them and I will never see them again.

You'll still show up for someone else who comes along and searches, as long as they haven't done the same. So "top ranked" websites still matter and are still a very good thing.

Is search engine optimization dead?

Not anytime soon.

But... you better have a great website, and I do mean GREAT, and now more than ever before.

Why?

A lousy website is more likely to get removed from an individual's search.

Good websites; well designed websites, with great information, that is relevant to the search (keywords/phrases), that give a person what they came looking for, are easy to use, easy to read, attractive, thematically connect with the visitor and their search.

Good websites don't have much to worry about.

Lousy websites; load slow, FLASH, don't have information that is readable, dancing stuff across the screen, amateur looking, doesn't meet the expectations of the visitor who clicked on your link - for starters.

Here are 10 (more) reasons a bride will leave your website.

Here's a video from Google that gives you an idea of how it works.