Google introduces public comments in search engine listings

I see via Drew that Google has introduced public comments against its search engine results. ZDNet has covered the news in the US and there will be lots more buzz about this over the next couple of days.

There is an overlap between what Google is doing here (comments and ratings) with the social web.

But my first instincts, as a digital PR guy and web marketer, are to ask “what does this means for the algorithms that Google uses to rank results?”

Remember, Google currently uses inbound links as a major indicator of a good or bad result. In the 90s, when a website was both hard and expensive to launch for us mere mortals, influence was in the hands of the (relative) few. Blog platforms have since personalised the search rankings and their growth has enabled individuals to exert influence through by the links that we create to other content on the web. However, success brings manipluation and websites are now so easy to create that there is a massive industry around using the technology to manipulate SERPs.

So, what Google could be doing is less of a ‘me too’ feature creep into social networking-style fan mentality but instead a way of adding human voice into the search results.

Oh yeah, and it will also help make sure that everyone has a Google Profile set up and that they continue to deepen their relationship with everything we do on the web

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