Author: Daniel Tunkelang

Google launched SearchWiki today–I hadn’t realized it was pre-launch when I blogged about it a few weeks ago. Here is their official description:

Today we’re launching SearchWiki, a way for you to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don’t feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users. We store your changes in your Google Account. If you are wondering if you are signed in, you can always check by noting if your username appears in the upper right-hand side of the page.

My first thought: who could possibly care about this feature? This feels more like bookmarking than personalizing search, and the feature raises all sorts of questions because of the dynamic nature of the search results.

But then it occurred to me that this feature is supposed to feel like bookmarking. At least if I understand the intent, the goal is not so much about a personalized search experience as it is personalized information management. Think “Stuff I’ve Seen” or “Information Scraps“. Google expects users to treat the results for particular search queries as static pages that can be manipulated and marked up.

I find this idea striking and a bit disconcerting, especially given that, at least in my experience, most web search results are anything but static. But I can see the potential appeal of wanting to stop the world so you can edit it. I’m not entirely sure what makes this approach a search “wiki”, though it is certainly reminiscent of Mahalo and Wikia Search. Incidentally, both of those seem to be struggling.

One incentive for Google to get users to adopt SearchWiki is that its users will increasingly invest effort in storing information on Google’s servers. And, because this information is tied to Google search results, there’s far more lock-in than from using Gmail and Google Apps, whose content can be ported to competing applications.

And, unlike Mahalo and Wikia Search, Google is starting with the lion’s share of the web search market. Even so, I’m skeptical that many users will see value in this feature. Lively lasted about six months. I’ll give SearchWiki a year.

I was just reading an article on TechCrunch about how New York-based advertising firm MediaWhiz has launched a new product today called InLinks for advertisers who want their sites associated with specific keywords. Those words, when they appear in content, will turn into links to the advertisers’ sites. Basically, they are selling “Google juice”.

Natually, Google isn’t impressed. Specifcally, Google’s Matt Cutts says:

Google has been very clear that selling such links that pass PageRank is a violation of our quality guidelines. Other search engines have said similar things. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has also given unambiguous guidance on this subject in the recent PDF at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2008/03/P064101tech.pdf where they said “Consumers who endorse and recommend products on their blogs or other sites for consideration should do so within the boundaries set forth in the FTC Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising and the FTC’s guidance on word of mouth marketing,” as well as “To date, in response to this concern, the FTC has advised that search engines need to disclose clearly and conspicuously if the ranking or other presentation of search results is a function of paid placement, and, similarly, that consumers who are paid to engage in word-of-mouth marketing must disclose that fact to recipients of their messages.”

Cutts also cites regulations in the United Kingdom and European Union concerning misleading trade practices that prohibit or at least discourage what MediaWhiz is doing.

Despite my distaste for Google’s black box approach to relevance, it’s pretty easy to see that Google has a higher moral ground than MediaWhiz in this instance. Relevance may be subjective and socially constructed, but no one wants it to be for sale except the people who can make money on selling it.

Still, it’s interesting that Cutts uses the word “violation” to describe the activity of companies that don’t have a contractual relationship with Google. Granted, he’s talking about violations of guidelines, not breach of contract, but it’s still sounds pretty legalistic. I wish I could take credit for this observation, but that honor goes to Kenneth Miller, who had this to say in a comment:

“Google has been very clear that selling such links that pass PageRank is a violation of our quality guidelines”. The way Matt Cutts phrased this imparts more authority to Google than was probably meant. At first glace it caught me off guard too – since the word violation seems to impart a breach of agreement. Surely, the internet does not exist at Google’s pleasure, and you do not enter into any contractual relationship with Google upon putting content online. Granted, if Google chooses to ignore your content because of it’s composition it may very well be the case that nobody will ever find it. It do find it interesting, however, that the company which has littered the internet with contextual text adds would have the gall to be up in arms about this obvious progression of their original idea. If Google wants to play the censorship game, perhaps they should start with the scores of morally questionable material one can easily find by using their search engine. I mean, so long as you want to talk about what is moral rather than what is for all intents and purposes still legal.

Let’s not blow this out of proportion–Google is not pressing charges against MediaWhiz, and no one is suggesting that Google would have any authority to do so. Even if “Google juice” is as valuable as SEO consultants make it out to be (some debate about that here), it’s certainly not a legal entitlement.

Nonetheless, it’s clear that Google’s decisions as a private entity have a dramatic effect on the link economy. An increasing number of folks see this as a problem, though few seem to be making constructive suggestions.

Here is one: make relevance and authority computation transparent. If the ranking of a search result comes with an audit trail, then there will be less value in gaming the ranking algorithm. Moreover, this transparency would be a first step towards making the ordering of results something controlled by users, rather than the search engine.

I know that what I am proposing isn’t the Googley way. But ultimately it is the only way that we will win the arms race against spammers.

If anyone has any doubt as to the real-world impact of social media, consider the recent battle between Motrin and the “mommy bloggers”. Motrin had released an ad, launched to coincide with international baby-wearing week,  that presented an irreverent take on “wearing your baby”. Apparently too irreverent: a critical mass of indignant baby-wearing moms used blogs and Twitter to express their outrage, and Johnson & Johnson quickly pulled the ad and apologize prominently on the Motrin home page.

Let’s not waste time debating the ad (full disclosure: my wife, who is a baby-wearing mom, loved it). The real story here is that social media is a game changer for ad hoc protests. In the past, it might have taken weeks to organize a boycott. Now we see coordinated activism–and results–in hours. This is a big deal, and surely a wake-up call to anyone who still believes that social media are a fad.

But the increasing power of social media also raises concerns about information accountability, an issue I’ve discussed before on this blog. What happens if we use the power of social media to get a message out there and it’s wrong? Sure, it’s possible to recant and even issue public apologies (even South Park style), but extensive research shows the lasting power of a first impression, even in the face of contradictory evidence (this is a form of anchoring bias).

Does the immediacy of social media impose new responsibility on publishers because of the potential for harm? Or should non-professional journalists (aka “citizen journalists”)  err on the side of “tweeting first and asking questions later”, letting the professionals take care of sorting out the facts.

The laws regarding defamation tend to favor publishers in the United States, in notable contrast to the corresponding laws in the United Kingdom, which essentially place the burden of proof on the publisher rather than on the offended party.

As an American, I can’t help but wonder if our laws reflect a different time, when publishers were scarce and highly conscious of their reputations. In a day when everyone can be a publisher–and an anonymous one no less–the balance of power to influence the public seems to have changed.

Overall, I see this power as a good thing, a triumph of democracy. Nonetheless, with great power comes great responsibility. Perhaps it’s best for the laws to err on the side of protecting free expression rather than protecting people from the harm that can be caused by malicious or reckless expression. That is the American ideal–to promote freedom of expression while recognizing that it comes at a price.

But it would nice to see publishers, whether professional or amateur, adjust to the new power of the virtual pen. Now that we have power, let’s show the world that we can use it responsibly.

Today, Yahoo announces a new tool to provide keywords describing search results that they make available to developers using their public BOSS API.

Meanwhile Google announces a new tool to tell you what keywords you should be paying Google to use in your AdWords campaign to advertise your site.

I imagine that the technology behind both tools isn’t all that different–or at least doesn’t have to be. But, while Yahoo makes friends in the technology community (especially among researchers), Google makes friends in the advertising community–and makes itself oodles of money. It’s all good to have friends, but someone has to pay the bills.