Should Google Focus On Real-time Search?

To Be or Not To Be A Real Time Search Engine

Let’s say you had a search engine. Say it dominates the search market by providing consistent, reliable, and trusted results. Now ask yourself, would you gamble with real-time search results in your SERPs?

I think you know where I’m heading. Real-time search for Google is a slippery slope, and I think Google shows some signs of agreement. So far Google is playing it very smart with the Caffeine update, by rolling it out slowly. Even better, they gave it a sandbox to get some feedback. This is a great way to dip their toe in the water without a major change in the status que.

The Google Caffeine update is less about algorithm changes and more about the way they crawl and index the web. This update will give Google better ability to crawl and index the rapidly growing number of websites, but I’m hesitant to think Google is doing this to go racing towards the Goal of “best real-time search engine.” They simply have too much at stake to move very quickly toward this goal.

Other search portals like Twitter, Facebook, & Cuil are on the real-time search bandwagon because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If one of these become the search engine of choice for what is happening now, then great for them.

It’s A Trap!

Let’s shift gears a moment and look at this again from a smaller search engine perspective. In order for them to win against almighty Google, they first have to find and area of weakness and exploit it.

Today the Achilles heel for Google is real-time search and it’s getting plenty of run among bloggers and internet news media outlets. The, “if you can’t beat’em, focus on a small niche that is possible to win” strategy is classic SEO advice. It’s nice so see how it is now being used by search engines themselves.

By claiming real-time search is the next big thing, other search engines are baiting Google to make algorithm changes to effect their SERPs. In my opinion, if Google gets drawn to this they may have to make themselves weaker in the areas they are strongest today.

Google search is #1 today because they consistently provide relevant results that provide a good user experience. Getting Google to make an algorithm change for real-time search could be in the best interest of other search engines. By turning the chink in the armor into total exposure, they could then start attacking from all sides.

Bing, would particularly love to get Google to worry about competing. Especially if it means Google becomes more vulnerable by changing to compete in real-time search. I think Google wins if they choose not to compete for real-time search. They let everyone else beat each other up over it while they keep on doing what they do best.

News is News – Search is Search

In recent weeks we have seen case studies on how different sites and search engines have stacked up when facing real-time search news. From Harry Potter to the Iran elections, nerds like myself have monitored trends to see how the different search portals are handling these items.

One of the best case studies is the Michael Jackson death coverage by Danny Dover at SEOmoz. As great as the data is, I disagree with his conclusion that Google needs to step up their real-time search. I think of it as news is news, and your everyday search results should adhere to a higher standard.

Google News picked up the MJ story 1 hour and 20 minutes after TMZ – that’s about as fast as any reputable news outlet was willing to confirm the news. In my opinion, Google should consider this a success. Google News picked up the story once it gained more credible news sources. As expected, regular search results followed shortly after.

I think the place for real-time search is the news section and not the every day search results we are used to. Google has a pretty good place for stuff already at Google News and then newly released Google Fast Flip

That being said, I would hate to see news online go the way of TV news channels. What kind of a user experience is it when every news station competes for breaking news? It makes for poor journalism.

Side note to CNN: No one cares that Don from Florida said on his twitter account “I think Tiger Woods is the best golfer of our time”.

I beg Google to run as far as they can from real-time SERPs like these. It’s simply a bad user experience.

Smarter Advertising Is Not With Real-Time Keywords

We all know by now that search engines make money by running ads. They need to keep advertisers happy by providing a good user experience. This raises the question, are real-time search results the best place to spend your online marketing budget?

You might convince me there are a few cases real-time keywords might help promote a product or service, but I think for the most part these are limited situations. From an ROI, keyword relevancy, and time management standpoint, more online marketers would likely agree it’s smarter to stick with proven keywords and not chase “hot trend” keywords.

Mistakes Happen with Real-Time Search

The mistakes are often funny (R.I.P Jeff Goldblum) but also reputation killers when you have built a search engine based on providing a reliable user experience. Real-time search results are more chaotic and some users may leave a search engine to gravitate toward results that are more consistent. Another reason why it may be impossible for one engine to be the best at every aspect of search.

When you take real-time search too far, you don’t check facts and you get things wrong. Maybe it’s not fair to Google to hold them to a higher standard, but we do. We are okay with TMZ not getting everything right because we know they are gossip hounds. But when we search Google we want our results to be accurate. This is why I search with Google multiple times a day and go to TMZ’s site about 2 times a year.

My advice to Google: Stick to providing us with the best user experience possible. This may mean you are not the best real-time search engine, but don’t sweat it.