Get ready for a more “Minority Report” world as new public ads could actually be watching you and changing the ad based on who is looking at the ad:

“Small cameras can now be embedded in the screen or hidden around it, tracking who looks at the screen and for how long. The makers of the tracking systems say the software can determine the viewer’s gender, approximate age range and, in some cases, ethnicity — and can change the ads accordingly. That could mean razor ads for men, cosmetics ads for women and video-game ads for teens.”

Search engines have already numbed people to a heavy amount of data analysis and tracking that goes on around the web in order to provide more and more relevant ads (assuming that advertising agencies and the like are doing the job properly), so it was only a matter of time before offline ads become very in-depth as well.

As a thought process it sounds scary, but these things get rolled out over time in a way that people just get used to seeing them as a part of everyday life. For example, when you sign up to GMail, you give Google (that is, its algorithm) the right to “read” your email in order to serve you relevant ads. I personally find that quite horrific as I consider all my emails to be private and non-negotiable for any kind of reading, but millions of people use the service as they realize that there is no real harm in allowing an algorithm to serve you ads and nothing else.

In the end, public ads that watch you will become an everyday thing–just as long as the ads are not using your name as you walk by.

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As evident by the latest Googlebomb, “cheerful achievement” that went to the White House website, Googlebombs still work. Previously, as Danny Sullivan somewhat inaccurately noted, Google tried to “defuse” Googlebombing through an algorithm. Google did not kill or defuse Googlebombing, but instead minimized the impact over the long-run (one has to really fine-tune what Google says and not over-react to the meaning).

Nonetheless, with sites such as Wikipedia noting that Googlebombing at one point potentially no longer worked, there was a public relations blitz using the public face of Matt Cutts to talk about how Google really detects Googlebombs through its algorithm. Useful information, but more insightful was two points in the official Google Webmaster Central Blog.

Hidden gem #1:

By improving our analysis of the link structure of the web, Google has begun minimizing the impact of many Googlebombs. Now we will typically return commentary, discussions, and articles about the Googlebombs instead.

Sounds like as long as no sites are talking about a new Googlebomb and the referenced phrase, then any Googlebomb that is kept quiet will still rank until it is publically exposed and that is only if a small number of people are pushing the Googlebomb.

Hidden gem #2:

Because these pranks are normally for phrases that are well off the beaten path, they haven’t been a very high priority for us. But over time, we’ve seen more people assume that they are Google’s opinion, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Googlebombed queries. That’s not true, and it seemed like it was worth trying to correct that misperception. So a few of us who work here got together and came up with an algorithm that minimizes the impact of many Googlebombs.

Yet, having sitelinks for non-brand keywords either is Google’s opinion about what site should rank high for or not enough people are complaining/publically assuming what site to go to. Would be an interesting question to learn about from Google.

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With the full text of Google’s general guidelines leaked on remote quality raters (April 2007 version — PDF) , one can really envision the immense problems that Google is having with its algorithm. A company that proclaimed itself as being able to algorithmically determine what should rank well across the web has been slowly backtracking towards either a manual approach or a double-checking approach towards Google’s search results.

News of the document is spreading like wildfire with ideas on how to use it to every SEO advantage. You can even begin to see further manual reviews happening as well affecting a multitude of websites.

Nonetheless, what the main players are not noting is how blatantly this points out the failure of Google’s algorithm and the future of spam results showing up more prominently.

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A short article over at Inc.com about workers struggling with data overloading made me consider whether or not we really are overloaded with data. Personally I believe that there is certainly such a thing as data overload, but that this does not necessarily mean that important information is easier lost in the long-run for everyone.

Yes, there will be some people who will not be able to handle going through so much data or even trying to figure out some scientific method to the madness (think of some kind of SEO Science) and they will lose their competitive advantage over millions of others.

I’m more interested in those that can rise above the short-run problems of too much data and learn how to become better researchers in order to find that needle in a haystack at a faster rate. IE: Rather than just continuing in the normal search pattern as they always have (in order from first to last), but rather through some innovative algorithmic approach that uses some rather magnetic tools to find that special needle.

Sure, you have to be careful about what kind of data you could be losing or missing out on through some abrogated researching, but in the end, I personally believe the benefits outweigh the costs.

Bring on the data I say! Plop it down in front of me and let me work my wonders and find that interesting tidbit of useful information.

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Search Engine Optimization is still in the early stages of turning hypotheses and theories into a form of science. SEO science in my opinion delve beyond just purely stating what has happened or taking guesses, but rather using complicated econometric formulas for regression analysis via panel data. Of course, the idea of running econometric analysis appeals to a very niche audience as correlations and marketing proofs are usually preferred (and in most cases is all that is needed).

Nonetheless, there are consistent thoughts and ideas inside the SEO world on what works for proper optimization and on what search engine itself. What interests me most is algorithmically figuring out what kind of factor affects search engines the most when you can hold other values constant and by what percent. It is within the analytical area of SEO that interests me and not just the marketing and strategy approach (which obviously are just as important).

Effective analysis of the science of SEO would have to take in a large amount of factors that could influence Google, not to mention the areas where Google manually changes its algorithm (a large error factor). Various blackhat and grayhat techniques in heavy traffic and niche markets could easily create a large statistical error, but even more importantly, the constant changes in search engine algorithms would make econometric analysis a limited benefit if not re-analyzed every algorithm update.

Fear not, however, as this has never prevented people from doing time-series analysis for the stock markets and successfully predicting, albeit briefly, where to put one’s money.

Still, there are search strategists and search marketing professionals and experts from Aaron Wall to Michael Martinez that do dig into what works within SEO (only to an extent due to confidentiality areas of course).

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Google announced a few days ago its vision to essentially mash together a Wikipedia like site with a Squidoo layout essentially desiring to have a competitive online encyclopedia that has ads. Beyond the horrible name, this product may come to haunt Google in the long-run becoming a turning point its perceived status as an honest company into a monopolistic corporation similarly to Microsoft.

Google Knol essentially could take down the major content providers such as Wikipedia, Squidoo, Hubpages, Yahoo Answers, etc. as it will naturally be ‘algorithmically’ favored by the grand ‘artificial intelligence’ of Google—just as Youtube currently is for videos. Competition for ad revenue will drive a lot of people to copy millions of text from across the web creating duplicate content issues that Google still cannot detect through its ‘artificial intelligence’ particularly with RSS feeds, in turn creating complaints of infringements on copywriting.

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Google has been trying to reduce the use of buying and selling links (for PageRank) since the last PR update by manually de-indexing some link broker websites along with dropping PageRank for some sites selling links. Quite a few sites selling those links became very worried and either stopped selling their links or placed the ‘nofollow’ tag on their paid links (which had to be some kind of violation to the link broker sites’ agreement with them).The PR update, which solidified Google’s strong stand against paid links (including the explicit addition to being against Google’s Guidelines), was both manual and cosmetic—at this point in time. Sites that were ranking for a variety of their keywords still continue to rank well and those that did not probably suffered a loss due to some of their paid links being nofollowed.

A few questions that come to mind all around the whole Paid Link spectacle:

• Did Google go into the link brokers’ sites illegally to get who was doing the paid link information or are they now able to truly detect paid links?
• Did Google get most of its information from webmasters submitting paid link reports and if so, can the link brokers sue the webmasters for breach of contract?
• Are paid links now officially black hat SEO? And just what is black hat SEO?
• Does Google need to be regulated by the FCC?
• What’s the difference between buying links and link bait?
• How strong is Google’s search results and are there any long-term flaws?

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