What Good is Google SearchWiki???

4William Bryant • 10th Dec 2008 • technology • google, search, searchwiki, spy

I’ve been discussing the exact intent of Google and their release of SearchWiki. Is it to create a better more relevant search experience? Or is it to spy on us and collect more information?

Well really, it seems like both.

In case you don’t know, SearchWiki’s purpose according to Google themselves is so that users can get a more personalized experience. They claim that since people often repeat searches multiple times (which they know because they collect information on our individual search habits), and Google’s search rankings are always changing, SearchWiki will make it easier for people to keep results they feel are most relevant to them at the top where they can find them.

In the latest eWeek I received, there was an interesting article about Google’s new search feature known as SearchWiki by Clint Boulton. It brought on an interesting perspective about what could be Google’s real motives behind SearchWiki.

Google, in the long run, wants to use SearchWiki… to gather more information from our searches

This was my suspision. But what is the information going to be used for? Re-ranking their already constantly changing search data? Advertising use? Google is very much in love with collecting personal use information from us– just download Google Desktop if you don’t already know. But what will SearchWiki information be used for?

Almost sounds more like Google “Bookmark” rather than a wiki.

And in many ways that’s a very practical way to look at SearchWiki. The thing that does make it like a wiki is the ability to comment on your own results. Yahoo! has done something similiar.

Which brings up the other, more interesting point about the intentions for SearchWiki: Competition.

Ultimately, Google has yet to devour their competition entirely. Google’s new browser, Chrome, is a sign that they’re not giving up their fight against Microsoft’s Live search it’s integration into IE.

That’s Google’s genius stroke; we believe SearchWiki is letting us control our search destiny, but Google keeps putting up more search ads in front of us. Google wants us to find what we’re looking for, and now it has provided a way to keep us in Google.com to do so.

This is a very interesting point, since Google is constantly trying to modify the way it ranks pages AND adsense ads on the search page to make a user experience so good, they wouldn’t want to use another search engine.

SearchWiki is another, more creative way to do just that.

It is possible the results of user input in SearchWiki will be used to re-rank and re-order search results within Google. However, the more likely, and more profitable reason Google has released this feature is they want to keep more traffic in Google than anywhere else. It gives the user a better experience, keeping them on Google more, and in return bringing in more AdSense dollars.

So, SEO people don’t be too alarmed just yet. My belief is that SearchWiki is more out to benefit Google with ad dollars rather than pagerank for other sites.

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