Google Is Goliath, Not God!

Did you ever consider that SEO extends beyond the reach of Google alone? If you haven’t, you’re not alone. Google is still very much the Goliath of the search industry accounting for such a massive portion of search traffic that few people consider other engines when they think about their SEO efforts. Times change, SEO changes with algorithms and the way people search changes as well. With social networking becoming an increasingly powerful force in the way that people find and share content, so too has the idea that SEO should always be tailored to Google alone.

Bing has made major strides toward becoming more than just “ the other search engine.” This is evidenced by their overhaul to the UI on their search platform that now offers things that Google cannot. While Google may index a Facebook profile or page, they do not feature individual interactions on that platform. The same goes for twitter and pretty much every other social platform aside from G+ which is of course their own product integrated into the search algorithm. Google doesn’t do this because they cannot – they don’t have the rights to do so because they never secured agreements with those companies.

Bing, on the other hand, does. Bing has agreements with Facebook and Twitter to index their content. To make a big splash, Bing launched a new UI and social search is now a reality. This now means that what you do on those platforms can have real time and durable search value. This is unprecedented. SEO can now be aimed at platform interactions on social networks to deliver a double bang for your buck. There is a drawback though.

Bing still doesn’t deliver enough search results to make it an optimal idea to focus all of your SEO efforts on. If however you are active in social media and networking, SEO for that now makes perfect sense. It seems like a given that people who spend a large portion of their time using social networks will move, albeit slowly, toward using a search platform that provides them with the type of content they actually do interact with. All of your eggs in the Bing basket wouldn’t be wise at this time, but it sure does make sense to set a couple aside so that when Bing does breakthrough you are better positioned to take advantage of it.