A few years ago Rohit Bhargava started a meme about Social Media Optimization. He described it as:

The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.

While it inspired dozens and dozens of trackback stories, including a write up by the high-profile SEO guru Danny Sulllivan; the meme essentially died. It died because the practice wasn’t based on reverse engineering an algorithm. It was fuzzy concepts on social engineering to behave in such a way as to attract links. Social link baiting, if you will.

Flash forward to present day and Bing announces Twitter search capabilities. Shortly after the news spikes, Google says “Me too!” But, then a quiet trump card emerges when Google softly announces a more comprehensive search effort for all of social media.

Ah, now there’s an algorithm! And it’s search. Assuming Google’s search experiment pans out, we’ll see a new generation of algo crackers building up the best practices for Social Search Optimization. One major difference between SEO and SSO will be the social ecosystem that the content lives in. It will be interesting to see the reaction to the SSO practices, especially the critiques.

We should begin with that fact Google says they don’t plan to mess with the referrer data. Google has been testing a new design for their search results (since last Nov.) that has been creating a bit of a panic in the Search Analytics world. When someone clicks on an organic search result, information is passed through the web browser that allows WebTrends and other analytics providers to determine the referring engine and search phrase used. Many of us use this information to optimize our web sites for the best placement in search engines (SEO). The design currently being tested, blocks this information from the web browser. Techniques used for tracking paid search in WebTrends Ad Director, Analytics, Warehouse and Visitor Intelligence don’t rely on the referrer and would be unaffected by any such change.

Google made the following statement:

“We’re continually testing new interfaces and features to enhance the user experience. We are currently experimenting with a javascript enhanced result page because we believe that it may ultimately provide a faster experience for our users. At this time only a small percentage of users will see this experiment. It is not our intention to disrupt referrer tracking, and we are continuing to iterate on this project. For more information on the experiments that we run on Google search: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/this-is-test-this-is-only-test.html”

We believe that Google is unlikely to release a change of this magnitude. WebTrends is keeping a close eye on this topic and will be ready to respond to any changes that may be required of us. I applaud their discipline in testing and look forward to seeing if their use of AJAX makes the search experience better.

If you are interested in reading more – below are some related articles.

• http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/090204-120558
• http://searchengineland.com/google-ajax-search-results-death-to-search-term-tracking-16431
• http://getclicky.com/blog/150/googles-new-ajax-powered-search-results-breaks-search-keyword-tracking-for-everyone
• http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2009/01/30/google-web-search-goes-completely-ajax/

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