Search Metrics: One Cannot Do Anything Unless One Finds the Info
May 2, 2024
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
The search engine optimization crowd bamboozled people with tales of getting to be number one on Google. The SEO experts themselves were tricked. The only way to appear on the first page of search results is to buy an ad. This is the pay-to-play approach to being found online. Now a person cannot do anything, including getting in the building to start one’s first job without searching. The company sent the future wizard an email with the access code. If the new hire cannot locate the access code, she cannot work without going through hoops. Most work or fun is similar. Without an ability to locate specific information online, a person is going to be locked out or just lost in space.
The new employee cannot search her email to locate the access code. No job for her. Thanks, MSFT Copilot, a so-so image without the crazy Grandma says, “You can’t get that image, fatso.”
I read a chunk of content marketing called “Predicted 25% Drop In Search Volume Remains Unclear.” The main idea (I think) is that with generative smart software, a person no longer has to check with Googzilla to get information. In some magical world, a person with a mobile phone will listen as the smart software tells a user what information is needed. Will Apple embrace Microsoft AI or Google AI? Will it matter to the user? Will the number of online queries decrease for Google if Apple decides it loves Redmond types more than Googley types? Nope.
The total number of online queries will continue to go up until the giant search purveyors collapse due to overburdened code, regulatory hassles, or their own ineptitude. But what about the estimates of mid tier consulting firms like Gartner? Hello, do you know that Gartner is essentially a collection of individuals who do the bidding of some work-from-home, self-anointed experts?
Face facts. There is one alleged monopoly controlling search. That is Google. It will take time for an upstart to siphon significant traffic from the constellation of Google services. Even Google’s own incredibly weird approach to managing the company will not be able to prevent people from using the service. Every email search is a search. Every direction in Waze is a search. Every click on a suggested YouTube TikTok knock off is a search. Every click on anything Google is a search. To tidy up the operation, assorted mechanisms for analyzing user behavior provide a fingerprint of users. Advertisers, even if they know they are being given a bit of a casino frippery, have to decide among Amazon, Meta, or, or … Sorry. I can’t think of another non-Google option.
If you want traffic, you can try to pull off a Black Swan event as OpenAI did. But for most organizations, if you want traffic, you pay Google. What about SEO? If the SEO outfit is a Google partner, you are on the Information Highway to Google’s version of Madison Avenue.
But what about the fancy charts and graphs which show Google’s vulnerability? Google’s biggest enemy is Google’s approach to managing its staff, its finances, and its technology. Bing or any other search competitor is going to find itself struggling to survive. Don’t believe me? Just ask the founder of Search2, Neeva, or any other search vendor crushed under Googzilla’s big paw. Unclear? Are you kidding me? Search volume is going to go up until something catastrophic happens. For now, buy Google advertising for traffic. Spend some money with Meta. Use Amazon if you sell fungible things. Google owns most of the traffic. Adjust and quit yapping about some fantasy cooked up by so-called experts.
Stephen E Arnold, May 2, 2024
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