Google is changing the way it returns search queries, giving users the ability to make more defined searches with longer strings and providing results with more information to make site selections. The changes may force rethinking search engine optimization and online marketing strategies.
"We’re constantly looking for ways to get you to the Web page you want as quickly as possible," company executives said in a post on the corporate blog.
By providing longer page titles, longer site descriptions and search terms highlighted and bolded, Google believes it will be giving users more and better information about the sites they’re looking for.
Tying longer search strings, search experts and Google say, will give users the ability to find the information and sites they want with greater precision. Some observers say the change will also keep users on Google longer, siphoning off valuable Web traffic from the sites Google feeds.
Search experts say it’s too soon to say if the changes will compel widespread changes in user behavior on the search site. Many users still use the most common one or two keywords to initiate searches. Google improved the search experience by providing suggested search strings with technology acquired from Orion in 2006.
If successful, the Google search changes may compel marketers and Web sites to change their SEO and marketing strategies. If users start looking for sites based on longer and more specific strings, it will necessitate IT solution providers providing more detail on their Web pages, augmenting their paid search campaigns with more keywords and following user search habits more closely, observers say.