Blind Five Year Old

Is Google’s Vince Change SEO Affirmative Action?

The recent ‘Vince Change’ by Google has been discussed, debated and well documented by Aaron Wall. In essence, the Vince Change gave brands more trust for short queries.

At first, the Vince Change didn’t bother me too much. Change is part of the business (keeps many of us in business) and it seems a waste to get worked up by such things. But the more I thought about it the more it bugged me.

Google Taxonomic Search

Late last year I’d theorized that Google might be employing taxonomic limits to certain search results. I wrote about the topic in response to some reports of unusual SERP behavior for product searches.

The general idea surrounding taxonomic search is that Google wants an even distribution of site types on certain searches. For products you’d likely want the manufacturer as well as a few retailers, a few review sites, a few shopping comparison sites and a few discussion forums. Having the results dominated by any one type (regardless of SEO strength) would be a suboptimal user experience.

I’m a bit ambivalent on the idea of taxonomic search. It probably would provide a better user experience and it simply raises the bar for good SEO. I’m still not sure Google is doing this, but it’s more intriguing to think about with Google’s Vince Change.

Commercial Results

I kept mulling over the Vince Change, both in what it was and how it might have been implemented. Matt Cutts, whom I like a lot, provided an answer that discussed the former but not the latter.

The part that caught my attention was when Matt discussed the SERP for ‘eclipse’ and specifically his mention of “commercial results”. So is it not brand but commercial results that were impacted by the Vince Change? Is there a simple taxonomy of commercial versus non-commercial sites?

But the RankPulse results don’t really bear that out. There were plenty of other commercial sites there previously, they just didn’t have the same name recognition. I couldn’t shrug off the Vince Change.

Is trust assigned or earned?

If the Vince Change was about trust and authority, how did these brand sites receive trust and authority? Was it assigned or earned? If it was earned, how exactly was it earned? If it had been earned through SEO (backlinks, on-page optimization etc.) shouldn’t they have already been highly ranked?

I found it difficult to determine how you’d ‘turn the knob’ of trust and authority and only have it impact certain types of sites. “Certain types of sites” would lead naturally to a taxonomic structure of some sort. But that would be a transparent proxy for brand and I want to believe Matt what he says they didn’t target brands.

Instead, did Google simply assign this trust and authority? A type of SEO affirmative action. If so, based on what criteria? If it’s not ‘brand’, what is it? It doesn’t seem like traffic, nor does it seem to have roots in traditional SEO. As of SMX West it wasn’t SearchWiki data, but maybe that’s changed since. Google does move fast.

Or maybe it’s another piece of data? Advertiser saturation or CTR via DoubleClick? Could it be about money?

Why the Vince Change matters

The Vince Change seems to target very broad queries. While short queries are still a big and important part of SEO, the trend is toward longer search queries. Yet, the inability to determine how trust and authority pooled around these brands is unsettling. What prevents the same type of change to be implemented on long tail queries?

Brands should be required to earn their trust on a level playing field.

Are we … being hustled?

There are rumors that Google is applying taxonomic limits to specific searches, usually surrounding products or brands.

When I first heard these rumors I dismissed the idea. Even if Google created a taxonomy of sites, I couldn’t see them using that data as part of the search algorithm. But I quickly began to see that Google likely has a robust taxonomy and could relatively easily use it as a signal within the algorithm.

Does Google have a taxonomy of websites?

Yes. It already displays this taxonomy via the AdWords placement targeting interface.

The real question is whether Google has attached a taxonomic classification to sites outside of the AdSense network? I’d guess that it may not be comprehensive, but that it includes sites that meet some quality threshold, potentially Page Rank.

Why would Google use a taxonomic signal in search?

Lets start with the idea that Google wants to ensure they deliver the best set of results to users. Would a product related SERP that contained more than five shopping comparison sites be the best result set? How about forums? Or blogs? Or retail sites?

Think about it. If you searched for ‘casio exilim’ would you want a SERP that had Walmart, Circuit City, Office Depot, Ritz Camera, Best Buy, Target and eBay? Similarly, would you want one that had PriceGrabber, BizRate, Buzzillions, Yahoo! Shopping, PriceRunner and NexTag?

I’m guessing that most of the time the natural ebb and flow of the algorithm works out and the results are a nice mixture of these different types of sites. But sometimes one type of site might be better optimized for a term and the type of taxonomic overload above might occur.

How would Google implement a taxonomic search signal?

At first the idea of using a taxonomic parameter in search sounded tough. Yet again, I quickly surmised that it might be more straightforward than I thought.

Wouldn’t you simply enter some logic that made it slightly more difficult for a site of the same taxonomic classification to rank for a query if there was already one ranked higher? The difficulty would increase based on the number of sites in the same taxonomic classification for a query. So, if two shopping comparison sites were already ranked, it would be far tougher for the third and even more so for the fourth.

It’s essentially a smoothing mechanism that gives slightly more opportunity to sites in another taxonomic classification to rank for a query that they might be shut out of otherwise.

A taxonomic limiter would be a safeguard mechanism and perhaps serve as an over-optimization trigger.

What does a taxonomic search signal mean for SEO?

A taxonomic search signal would be a bit like affirmative action for SEO, giving lesser optimized sites a leg up on the competition. It also means greater SERP volatility as sites within one taxonomic class swap positions.

For instance, two sites in the same taxonomic class could be very close and should be ranked 1st and 2nd, but because of the taxonomic limiter are ranked 1st and 5th. If the second site eclipses the first, it would immediately be ranked 1st since the limiter wouldn’t apply. Consequently, the first site would drop, likely to 4th or 5th because the limiter is now being applied.

Is Google really using a taxonomic search signal?

Maybe. While the idea makes sense, the changes some are seeing could instead be caused by one of the numerous algorithm tweaks. But the tools to measure and monitor SEO strength are getting better. Companies can monitor their rank consistently over time and identify when things go sideways. Sometimes the changes don’t make a whole lot of sense and that’s when these types of theories and rumors are born.

What do you think? Is Google using a taxonomic search signal and limiter in search results?