All Roads Lead to Congestion: Weighing in on Google Universal Search

This is one of the new Google changes you have to be aware of: it is called “Universal search” and it will have a dramatic impact on your current organic positions (hint: on the way down). For those who have not heard about Google Universal Search yet, the concept is very simple. From now on, instead of having the regular search results you are familiar with, we could see any of the following on any given page of a Google SERPs (Search Engine Result pages):

* images
* video
* news
* maps / local results
* blogs
* books
* products
* groups
* patents
* scholarly works

Because of these new entrants, the concept of having “top search engine rankings” changes dramatically. On one hand a first page ranking is much more difficult to achieve, and on the other, there are now more ways in which to achieve a first page ranking. The end result is obvious. It will be an even more crowded space and it gets even more difficult for any search marketer to promise a page 1 in SERPs. Yahoo!

So what are the consequences of this major change in search results? I don’t know if you are like me and found that there are already too many websites to compete against in search results. Like I said a long time ago when I was envisioning the search road for the future: some form of coopetition between similar organizations targeting the same customers might be needed anytime soon. This is so simply because traffic matters and there are only a handful amount of positions in SERPs that actually get the job done. This is one of the potential solutions to overcome this challenge. It is either that, or you invest more in your Search Marketing plan. Over the years, it has become a common understanding that any market creates a lot of losers in organic search rankings who end up in the invisible web (page 2 and beyond). This latest change is no different than what Google has always been doing to increase relevancy in search results and thus make it harder for any company (and search marketer) to reach the top. Making it hard(er) every year to reach the top has always been around. This is one step further in the same direction and it was expected. More is coming. Depending on how long you have been doing search marketing and your level of awareness of you own search marketing strategy and the one of your competitors, this means you will not only have to work harder to reach a top 5 position, you will have to keep working very hard in order to stay there. Everybody wants to be in the top 5 and there are 100 other companies that want the same thing you do.

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