Blogs still high impact with any Google search change

A recent post to The Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization News asks What If Google Didn't Like Blogs?

The post acknowledges Google likes blogs with blogs doing very well in search results on Google because Blogs contain fresh content and are richly interlinked. However the question is raised would blogs still be useful commercial tools if Google changed its algorithms to give less weight to blogs or relegated blogs to a whole separate search category like news or groups.

The answer given:

Yes, they would still be useful tools. Blogs would still accrue traffic from other blogs, and as many blog readers go from blog to blog via links your blog will still benefit from the grapevine marketing effect that blogs have. Blogs can also give surfers reasons to visit your site other than an interest in your products. If you were to write a blog that provided a commentary on your industry, you will attract other surfers and your image will also be boosted in the resulting perception that you are an expert in your field.

The post provides two additional reasons blogs would still be valuable tools for lawyer marketing:

Your blog also gives you a method for improving customer communications - take the Macromedia example, where the corporation actively encourages employees to blog about their products so they can help customers out with any queries they may have. Another advantage is that Blogs allow you to add regularly updated content to an otherwise static site. If you have a fairly static site you would be foolish to invest in a costly Content Management System (CMS). The available CMSs for blogs are all relatively inexpensive and provide a polished layout for your content with minimal maintenance.

Two other things to think about. One, talking to a programmer at Microsoft, changing the search algorithms to weed out blogs is not going to be an easy task. Blogs do not stand up and say "Hey, I am a blog, not a traditional site." Sure there are things Google could 'spider' for in reviewing sites but it is not a lay up.

Second, I am not sure Google would want to bury blogs as a source to find valuable information. Google works because its mission is to be the preeminent research tool - if you are doing research, come to Google. Blog publishers review and catalogue useful information for folks doing research on a topic. To deprive people searching at Google access to information on blogs, decreases the value of Google.

So for now, I do not see blogs becoming any less valuable as far as achieving top placement in search engines. Even if the day comes when they blogs do not perform as well in search engines, they still have tremendous value.

February 3, 2004 in Search engine optimization | Permalink