Personalized, Trusted Networks vs. Traditional SEM

March 17, 2006

by Stuart

In this article from New Media Age an interesting discussion of searching the social web versus searching the public web is port forth. The discussion is about the impact of the growth of personalization and social marketing and how that poses the potential for significant changes in how traditional SEM (search engine marketing) is implemented.

In short, personalization and social marketing represents the search and retrieval of web resources that become part of a trusted network that by it’s very fundamentals filters out useless and unproductive information. As pointed out in this article, these are resources that are reusable and lend themselves well as great resources for repeated reference.

Common searches may become increasingly uncommon as users look more to their trusted networks for resources and references. As search engines like Yahoo! implement personalization in search where users can save searches and share them among their networks and as users are able to set personalized search parameters, traditional SEM is now challenged in how to target these personalized search routines and shared social networks.

I agree with this article in that search spammers will experience less effective results and that search engine marketing will increasingly require good content to

continue to get good rankings. I came across this article via this article at WebProNews entitledSearch Good For SEO Personalization Bad.

In effect, keyword targeting and related search engine marketing protocols must along with its mechanics offer high value content for good positioning. Here’s a great quote from that article:

“Search engines represent the best way for a marketer to be noticed by users. Once a quality resource has been found and integrated within a network, and users weary of spam sites and content-poor optimized sites limit themselves to the trusted network, the effectiveness of SEM decreases. Search engines represent the best way for a marketer to be noticed by users. Once a quality resource has been found and integrated within a network, and users weary of spam sites and content-poor optimized sites limit themselves to the trusted network, the effectiveness of SEM decreases.” Read the entire article here.

The impact of personalized search, trusted searches and social networks on traditional search engine marketing is only beginning to flourish but has been having and significant and less recognized impact on reaching a higher quality of audience and clientele through web search. I think we’ve known that for months now. As the big boys of search employ personalization and through their own trusted networks (their blog services, search services, et al) we’ll see the continued increase in conditioning the minds of web searchers to increasingly filter the noise and nonsense of common search and build their own trusted searches to share in their social networks.

Traditional web marketers will continually face the challenge of how to become an adopted and trusted source of their users online search and social habits.