The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
January 2007, Volume 6, Issue 1

Wikiasari - Google's New Headache?

by Catherine Parker, Search Marketing Specialist, iProspect

With the recent announcement that the creator of Wikipedia plans to launch a new search engine, will Google finally face some serious competition? Until now, many of Google’s competitors have tried to imitate their search engine algorithm – and failed. But Wikipedia’s new open source search project, christened “Wikiasari,” claims that it will take a completely new approach, which may be the key to rivaling Google’s search dominance.

A New Approach

By considering inbound links, rather than solely page content, to rank websites, Google has consistently been able to produce accurate results on an enormous range of search topics. Although Google is hard to fool, savvy webmasters have realized that affecting the links to a page can improve their rankings. As a result, many of Google search queries produce more commercially relevant, than truly, useful results.

Rather than applying a blanket automated algorithm as Google does, Wikiasari would allow ordinary users, not just Web publishers, to rank a site’s relevancy to a particular query. Just as Wikipedia allows anyone to edit an entry, Wikiasari will rely on any user to flag sites he/she thinks are good or bad.

Social Search’s Hurdles

Social search’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness. While human intervention will mean fewer spamming sites showing up within results, because people will be able to vote for sites, they’ll also be to manipulate their own site’s rankings.

Search Engine Watch points out that human involvement means a social search engine won’t scale as well as an automated alternative. How, for example, can humans possibly vote for (or tag) all websites they find relevant for every single conceivable search? Then there is the issue of user intent – as there may be multiple meanings for a given search phrase, so users would be voting for a site’s relevancy as it applies to multiple, perhaps conflicting, intents.

A Competitor for Google?

Wikipedia is proof that open source projects can be wildly successful and if Wikiasari can overcome social search’s teething problems, it could be a serious contender to Google. Meanwhile, the more successful Google grows, the harder will be for them to dynamically adapt to competition. And as they expand from search into other media spaces, they may an opportunity for someone else to steal the ball.

What Does this Mean for Marketers?

Optimizing for a social search engine would involve a different set of rules. In addition to increasing your site’s link popularity from traditional sources such as vendors and partners, it would need to be enhanced in the social media landscape as well. Using viral marketing techniques on public platforms such as YouTube and MySpace are ways to expose your brand quickly in the “informal” social community.

Of course, to get your site talked about on these spaces means you’ll need to offer something different that is worth talking about, as mediocre messages simply won’t be able to cut through the noise. Offering a different approach to solving a business problem, or being a pioneer in your market space are ways to achieve this. Familiarize yourself with social bookmarking sites like Technorati and Digg. Look at tagged sites in your particular marketplace, and see what it is about these sites that have people talking about them. Then come up with a strategy for giving your business (and site) that same quality.

Engage in an Individual Conversation

Engaging in an individual conversation with your customers through a corporate blog is another way to get people talking about your business, and sites like Digg and del.icio.us could then leverage your corporate blog posts to create “social links.” Don’t be tempted to control what people say in comments and reviews of your blog. To excel in a social search engine, your product or service needs to be inherently good enough to allow anyone to talk about it in a public arena, knowing that it will naturally rise to the top.

Optimizing your site for a social search engine will require, more than ever, the marrying of your traditional marketing strategy with your online one. Although people will talk and vote for your site online, what they will talk about is your actual product or service – and it is here that your offline marketing strategy will come into play.
Whether or not Wikiasari lives up to its fast-growing expectations remains to be seen, but if it does, you’ll need to evaluate your product or service in terms of how the common Web user sees it, making sure it is engaging and interesting enough to grab their attention. That said, 2007 looks to be an interesting year for search indeed.

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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: January 2007, Volume 6, Issue 1

Wikiasari - Google's New Headache?

The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
January 2007, Volume 6, Issue 1