Google Search Is Changing
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I’ve just noticed Google rolled something else out when they rolled out the Gmail themes: they’ve now added a “Promote”, “Remove” and “Comment” button to each search result:
(Of course I was going to demo by searching my own name 
).
It will be interesting to see how this affects search results and the profits online marketers make. If users “promote” or “remove” a website, will it only affect that user’s search results or will it affect the overall search ranking for that site for everyone?
If it has an impact on the overall rankings, we could see those “SEO Gurus” losing a lot of money as users “remove” those useless crap sites you always find in search results which are purely there to get you to click ads. It’ll also make search results a lot more useful and relevant. That said, it’s easy enough to code something to automatically do the “promote” clicking, so I don’t think it’ll be that simple.
Details of exactly what effect these buttons will have are quite slim at the moment, so we’ll have to wait and see, but the Times has an article on the new functionality that’s worth a read.
Will “SEO” finally take on a new meaning - a meaning that more closely represents what the acronym actually stands for, and not what it’s become known for? Or will a whole new acronym come to light?
While a great idea on paper, I’m worried this may get abused rather quickly. For those of us that are honest however, this may prove to be quite helpful. Here’s hoping Google has done it again.
So am I, especially when you consider some of the tactics used by “SEO Gurus”. All we can hope is there are enough honest people to quash the few dishonest. Only time will tell.