Tagging Search Results

Tagging Search Results

Both Yahoo! and Google allow users to sign into accounts and search. Searchers can also tag, or label, the results. Readers might tag my site using seo, search, or seo blog.

Here are examples of tags people use to describe my site: 

I do not believe the tags are being heavily used to influence search relevancy algorithms,

but eventually they may carry some weight. And many of the people who use tags also publish websites where they may link to some of the items they tagged.

As the user search history builds and search engines can cross-compare search histories between users, the tag data may be used to help understand what concepts and other documents a particular document is related to. For example:

•       When people tag or link to documents on their own, they are likely to use a variety of terms to describe a document. This type of somewhat random and sloppy information organization is known as a folksonomy.

•       If searchers tag my site SEO or Internet marketing then search engines may believe my site is about those topics.

•       If the same users frequently tag SearchEngineWatch.com and SeoBook.com, then a search engine may think that the two websites are related.

•       Yahoo! My Web allows you to share what sites you are tagging with your friends.

•       Google created a program called Google Co-op that allows groups of people to create a topical search engine by tagging relevant sites. Google users can then subscribe to allow those results to appear in their Google search results.

•       Yahoo! and Google both have feed readers that they can use to see how popular your site is and how frequently readers visit it.

•       If my site ranks well in search results and many users never click on the listing, search engines may want to demote my site. If most people who click on my listing immediately click the back button, search engines may want to demote my site or flag it for human review.

•       Search engines will be able to cross-compare user acceptance data (as described in the point above), what sites are being tagged, how those sites are being tagged, and linkage data to determine if the popularity of a site is natural or if it is being manipulated by human intervention.

•       Google bought YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars, and also owns many other services (AdSense, Google Analytics, Google Toolbar, etc.) that allow them to collect web usage data. As Google hosts more of the web’s content they will be able to refine their relevancy algorithms by incorporating more usage data into their algorithms.

•       If you can think of a way to create a site that people interested in your topic would want to tag, then you will be better off than 95% of your competition.

•       Tagging somewhat relates to link building. Much later on in the book I cover link building in depth.