Affiliate Musketeer

I’ve just done a search for one of my many sites and spotted a new googleism in the SERPS.  The ability to ‘promote’ or ‘delete’ a result from the results pages!  Admittedly, it is customised for my preferences, using my google ID as the epicentre, but is an interesting move towards user-generated content, pulling the philosophy of social media and widgetization right into search.

If your site was made by humans, for humans, then you’ll probably receive many promotes, but if you’ve got your rankings underhanded, chances are you’ll get a fair few ‘deletes’ against your site – that’s not to mention how competitors will react….

Of course, whilst the initial reaction to his googleism is panic, after a breather you come to realise that the promotion and deletion of websites is only applicable to google IDs, which means a LOT of your potential customers won’t have them.  The other point that reassures me is that even though the ability to promote and delete is there, the SERPS are there first; meaning that page 1 rankings will still be page 1 rankings for that first search.

So, what does it mean for your site?

• Content rich, relevant sites for users will win
• You’ll need to write catchy meta descriptions to try and encourage those early promotes
• If you’re a scraper, you’re fu%%ed
• Nothing if the majority of your customers won’t have Google IDs
• Business as usual : write for humans, provide relevant content