MediaVision Blog : Search Engine Marketing

What is “SEO Resistant Search” you ask? Scoble has coined this term to refer to a search engine powered by the social graph which isn’t subject to the same SEO manipulation that Google is.

“Social graph” meaning “the global mapping of everybody and how they’re related”

With the recent rise and proliferation of social networks, the social graph comes into the spotlight. Unlike the one that scientists have been studying, this one is digital and defined explicitly by connections in all social networks.

If search engines started to use social data in their search results, we would end up with some very interesting results. All the cool stuff on the internet that is not entirely SEO compliant will start to appear instead of being buried. That would in essence mean the end of SEO.

Altoft mentions that if SEO resistant search is enabled by search relevance and the social graph is the key to this resistance; a Search Engine`s “social assets” and their web-mail etc is the key to the social graph. Interesting enough…

So, this would be another method of searching and although, cool in the conception phase, it could never replace SEO. SEO is beyond this switch, regardless of the data and complex web of information that it dissects to get the results. The purpose of SEO’s is in fact to figure out how to make a site get higher rankings no matter what factors the algorithm uses.

Therefore, the social graph can never be fully SEO resistant, as Social Media and specifically the Social Graph have in fact become incorporated into the bigger SEO picture. This data is being used regularly by SEO consultants, who jumped on that train right at the get-go and dragged their clients on board too. This has huge advantages as many organisations are still trying to get their head around straight up SEO, never mind Social Graphs.

The key factor to the success of this concept would be to develop an open source database which accepts information from multiple social networks, present it to the end-user, as well as allow users to approve other social networks to find the information.

But that is not sufficient; achieving high rankings for a commercial site on a social graph powered search engine would not be an easy task. It requires several integrated factors that require a long-term social media strategy created by an experienced media consultant. It will take a lot of work to get a solution in place.

Vanessa Fox spoke about the concept of “SEO Resistant Search” & “SEO is Evil” in a blog post recently, describing how people who aren’t directly involved in SEO view the field. It seems like the general outsider’s perception of SEO has gone from “optimising for search engines” to “manipulating search engines.” Rather tainted.

In conclusion, although I find the concept of social graph powered search engine fascinating, I don’t think that Search will ever become SEO resistant. There are too many considerations that need to be addressed. Good SEO consultants will figure out what the search engine needs for great rankings. Just as SEO can be gamed, so can the social graph. Nothing is fool proof.