Semantic Search Word Play: Nail and Hospital Edition
August 15, 2015
I find the semantic search hoo-hah fascinating. Not long ago, I reported that Yebol, which some semantic wizard was promoting, bit the dust in 2010. No matter. The semantic search boomlet continues to echo. I don’t hear it in my neck of the woods, but apparently some folks are tuned to this semantic razzle dazzle.
The write up which caught my attention this morning is “Semantic Search: Is It Time for a Think Building Campaign?”
My answer is, “No.”
Let’s look at the argument because I am often wrong, off base, and addled. What do you expect from a goose living in rural Kentucky where 300 baud is a speedy network connection.
The write up points out a traffic hungry person could sign up for directories. Anyone remember those? Yahoo was one, but the Xoogler has anchored Yahoo’s revisionist history is “search.” I don’t expect much in the history department. Sorry.
The article leaps to this point:
The biggest reason to re-evaluate the power of moderated local directories, and related resources, has to do with Google’s shift towards semantic search. If you aren’t aware of this transition, the premise is simple: instead of simply matching keywords to pages that exist in the search engine’s databases, Google’s engineers are trying to get better about understanding the context of the search, and the intent of the searcher.
Sounds great, right. The problem is that Google engineers (not the Alphabet crowd) are trying to find ways to pump up the advertising revenue. I am not sure “semantics” is going to help as much as other types of content processing activities.
Nevertheless, the write up then makes this interesting statement:
This sounds technical but it’s conceptually straightforward. Imagine for a moment that I pick up my iPhone and tell Google’s app that I’ve “driven a nail through my leg”. Matching that exact search phrase isn’t important to me in interpreting results – what matters is that I want “hospital” instead of a “hardware store.” That’s the essence of semantic search.
Now, hold one’s mules, please. The person who pounds a nail through one’s leg may not need a hospital. If the nail misses the femur and threads around (not through) the popliteal, posterior tibial, anterior tibial, peroneal, planar, and dorsalis pedis arteries—one might pull out the nail.
Here in Kentucky, the person who performs this act of self mutilation or willful or unintentional abuse might want a link to this health care facility:
Disagree? That’s what makes horse races.
The write up points out that one can purchase “reputation.” The article points to WhiteSpark and MOZ Local.
The conclusion to the write up certainly is upbeat:
Taking advantage of citations and directories can still help you improve your findability – on search engines and elsewhere in the real world – but only if you’re focused on providing valuable information for potential customers, instead of trying to beat those ever-changing algorithms. In many ways semantic search takes us back to the golden days of the Web, when in terms of working online anything was possible as long as you had passion, belief in yourself, and energy to work at it.
Yep, the golden days. The issue I have with the write up is that semantic search as a way to distort Google’s already flakey relevance algorithms is an example of SEO adaptation. The carnival has arrived. The SEO snake oil sales person will cure your site’s pancreatic cancer and maybe help a a customer avoid pounding nails into one’s body parts.
Stephen E Arnold, August 15, 2015
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