Universal Search Statistics in a "Post Page Rank World"

As most blogs breathed a sign of relief that Google did not go out of business in Q1 from the slowing economy, my favorite "Terminator" fan, Sergey Brin, divulged some information on the success of Universal Search:

In the past year we have deployed Universal Search. Since we launched it, we were able to double the number of queries where when it takes over, in especially images, maps and books.

What is Universal Search? Last year, Google innocuously released it on Google.com. Most people are unfamiliar with Universal Search, but it is the basic concept (but complex execution) of retrieving search results from other repositories of information from one query. 

See it for yourself on "darth vader." Within the search engine results page, you can see images, video, news archives, and related searches. While this may seem trivial, I knew that this would have some positive effects as from experience I know that users do not click on the tabs above the search box (Images, News, Shopping, etc). People want to type one word into a search box and get "all" relevant content as if by magic. At least the goal is clear!

What are the effects? Well, as Sergey said, it has doubled the usage of images, maps, and books. Google has proved, for the first time, that by bringing valuable content onto the main search engine results page, information gets consumed. While this may seem like common sense, it is has been nearly impossible to achieve through a wide variety of boring math reasons. Yet, business spend millions of dollars on content that their users don't leverage, why? Just as on Google, people will not search separate collections. This may be annoying to information professionals, and the "classic" enterprise approaches for fixing it has been very expensive.

The Universal Search Business Effects

Let's tackle public facing web sites first. According to Robert Keating, the general manager at DMOZ, the open directory that serves as the seedlist for the major commercial search engines,

We have entered a post page rank world. As Google integrates more content from other information sources, the importance of pagerank will diminish. Search Engine Optimization firms will have to focus on publishing content into different formats and distributing it across the Internet as opposed to only worrying about getting some links.

Bob knows quite a bit about SEO and how, as an industry, SEO firms will simply register sites to DMOZ to improve rankings even though it is free and easy to do on your own.

Post Page Rank World? I will officially steal that in my future meetings. I have to agree that search engine optimization (SEO) is about to get turned on its head, especially given the massive amount of SEO, SEM, ad agencies, etc. that know very little about how the world is shifting. Universal Search Optimization (USO) is probably a better term because unless your site appears 1,2,or 3 at the top of Google, then the only chance that you have for anyone to find you is to have images, video, and news feeds that could appear on the search engine results page (SERP) real estate.

In a post page rank world, content distribution is king. Plus, with proper content distribution, your page rank will follow. While Adhere has done this type of consulting, we did not have a name for it. Let's see if Universal Search Optimization sticks.

On to the enterprise, where the concept of Universal Search has been a Holy Grail, this is not good news for enterprise search vendors. Google has proven that when you integrate content into one results page, the use of that content increases. The amount of people in an organizations that leverage search systems and internal information is laughably low and very unproductive. Google has provided the answer. 

Google's Universal Search technology is founded in federating and integrating results. Most enterprise search companies run away from federated search because the more content that they can gobble up, the more money they make. Admittedly, I have been selling the idea of a GSA plus federated products for a while, but now I am excited to have evidence about the increased usage. 

To be clear: A Google Search Appliance with federated technology will increase usage of other valuable systems that sit unused. Let your employees use the information from EBSCO, Hoovers, Lexus, etc. to make them more efficient. Best of all, this approach will save time and money compared to typical enterprise software deployments. 

A Post Page Rank World indeed. 

New Study “Beyond Search” Now Available

Stephen E. Arnold’s most recent study–Beyond Search: What to Do When Your Enterprise Search System Doesn’t Work–is now available from the Gilbane Group. The 270-page study contains practical information about fixing problems with an existing behind-the-firewall search system, a market analysis and vendor road map, profiles of 24 vendors of behind-the-firewall search and content processing systems, and a glossary.

The three key findings from the year-long research behind the book are that user dissatisfaction with incumbent search systems is increasing. The need to deploy a system that meets increasingly savvy users’ needs is rising sharply.

Mr. Arnold also says that Google’s dataspace technology–largely unknown by search vendors and not yet deployed by Google–could reshape enterprise search in a very short time if Google makes it available. Google is keeping quiet about the dataspace technology acquired when Google purchased Transformic, Inc. in 2006. He said, “Few outside of Google know about dataspaces, and the technology offers one way to deliver new ty8pes of query functionality so users can know how certain a particular result is to be accurate and to determine the lineage of a particular result.” He added, “The world is starting to think about BigTable, but dataspaces are a quantum leap beyond the functionality of BigTable, which is in itself a quatum leap beyond relational database technology. Google’s engineering and technical prowess are its chief competitive advantage.”

Finally, Mr. Arnold’s research reveals that remarkable new, extremeley useful technologies are being develoiped outside the US. Mr. Arnold says, “There’s a perception that innovation in search only arises in the United States. That’s simply not true. Non-U.S. vendors like Exalead and ISYS Search Software are making strong thrusts into the North American market. Others are opening offices in the U.S. and will increase the competititve heat for many of the best-known search vendors.

Martin White, noted British search and content expert, said about Beyond Search, “a fabulous job on the book and the industry, and the CIO fraternity, should be very grateful that Mr. Arnold found the energy to write it.”

You can order the study from the Gilbane Group. Selected quotations from the study appear on Mr. Arnold’s Web site, ArnoldIT.com. An abbreviated table of contents is available on that site as well.

Using the Cloud for Site Search

A flurry of articles have come out recently that reiterate the obvious: if your search results are not on top of the commercial search engine results pages, then no one will find you. 

What is ironic is that while most business have this knowledge in the enterprise (either in the marketing department or the interactive ad agency), that does not cycle back to their own site search.

Let me outline a typical business flow that I see every day from organizations both large and small:

1. Company hires interactive firm for web site and / or search engine optimization and search engine marketing work
2. Company (hopefully) decides which words to purchase for advertisement on commercial search engine. Many interactive ad agencies will make this strategic decision for you (not a good idea).
3. Company's marketing department has lots of team meetings with interactive ad agency for web site and advertising reports

Now let me outline the behavior of the search user:

1. End user does a search on Google (or another commercial search engine)
2. User will click on either the ad or the organic search listing
3. User will type that same word on your site search box
4. Users will see search engine results pages (SERP) that looks like it came from a math textbook (my favorite is the classic percentages of relevance)
5. User goes back to Google 

The search user in this scenario will ignore all the investment and expense of hiring the ad agency, the time and effort of your marketing team, and barely look at your web site.

The SERP is their interface to your site, and that is probably run by the IT person somewhere in your organization who has 1000 other things to do. Few interactive ad agencies think about designing the SERP, and it is shocking to see how sites lose their brand and other corporate elements on that page.

Business have to organize all things search under one umbrella: site search, search engine marketing, and search engine optimization are all interrelated and no one seems to realize that (barring a few very large web media properties). 

At Adhere, we call this "Universal Search Optimization" and our education and reports have brought smiles to many a marketing manager who had different groups for each component, moving in different directions, and racking up large bills.

Our process earns revenue by stopping the traffic bleeding from your site search by integrating the work of your interactive ad agencies and making all of your search activities coordinated and organized. 

(Hint, you can use the cloud for all three.)

Salesforce Finally Integrates Google App Suite

In case you had not heard from Techcrunch, Google or Salesforce, the much rumored Google Apps integration with Salesforce is now live. The two major players in cloud computing have combined forces to create a robust one stop cloud application suite. This is a good strategic play by Google, not only because Salesforce is the leader in cloud computing, but also because salespeople can drive changes with for how an organization operates. 

The mass improvements in efficiency for salespeople, who tend to go on the road and be less tolerant of IT roadblocks than those inside of a company, lead to the mass adoption of Salesforce, the first big success in cloud computing. By integrating an office application into the Salesforce suite, the same type of sweeping change may / should ensue. 

When salespeople and business managers find that for a few more dollars a more that they can operate their business in a more efficient manner, it has the chance to be the true tipping point for change. IT staffs must be beware of traditional enterprise software approaches when the people who generate the revenue embrace a completely different model. As operation decisions move up the food chain in an organization, the power shifts dramatically goes to those who earn the money and not spend it.

There is little doubt that Salesforce made the ability to work offine a requirement for Google given the close proximity of this official release with the the offline capability announced just one week ago. Given, how long this rumor has swirled around the blogs, Salesforce must have known that non-offline access would have been a problem for their user base.

Now that the offline issue is solved Salesforce is moving towards a one stop shop for your enterprise needs, whether you are a small business for a Fortune 500 company. Not to mention the obvious joy in Salesforce's CEO Marc Benioff's voice in going after Microsoft:

You’ve seen what we have been doing is slowly integrating all of our services with theirs. Certainly the enemy of my enemy is my friend, which makes Google my best friend. I have spoken with a lot of customers who want to get off of Microsoft Word.

Nice video below about the power of leveraging the cloud.