FEATURE
WHEN SEO MET AI
To stay onside with Google and not forfeit millions in lost visibility, you need to be more diligent than the search behemoth itself and also understand its increasing use of artificial intelligence, says Paul Reilly from Media Skunk Works
FOR THOSE OF YOU who have had the pleasure of having been around this industry for even a short period of time, you will no doubt have figured out that SEO can be a funny old game. For that matter, it doesn’ t matter what industry you work in, Google is now deeply integrated with all of our lives and has been for nearly two decades. However, if you are one of the lucky few who remain unaffected by it, I can only guess you’ ve recently returned from a couple of decades of devoted Ayurvedic introspection or perhaps the pursuit of enlightenment with an isolated monastic order. Or perhaps your government’ s leadership insists you use the state-run alternative. Failing that, you may have simply messed up your parole review. In any of the aforementioned possible eventualities, you will have a lot of catching up to do.
My aim with this article is twofold: 1) to provide a starting point for those who are currently peering down the SEO rabbit hole; and 2) for those who have already begun their venture into wonderland, to share some insights with you which I expect to be of interest to both pure SEO and affiliates in general.
But first: happy“ belated” birthday, Google I’ d like you to join me in a toast to Google, wishing it the very best belated birthday. If you missed it, it was Google’ s 19th birthday on 27 September( a few days ago, at the time of writing).
According to Google’ s official birthday announcement( 2017):
“ In 1997, one of Google’ s co-founders, Larry Page, had just arrived at Stanford University to pursue his PhD in computer science. Of all the students on campus,
Google’ s other co-founder, Sergey Brin, was randomly assigned to show Page around. This chance encounter was the happy surprise that started it all.”
For reasons you’ ll understand in a moment, I’ d like to ask you to read the full quotation one more time. Seriously, it’ s important! Did you read it again … carefully?
How would you know if the claim was true?
I will use this example by way of illustration while I remind you that SEO( when practised responsibly) is actually a subfield of forensic science and as such it requires the same investigative approach.
Consider the definition: Forensic( adjective)“ belonging to, used in, or suitable to courts of judicature or to public discussion and debate”( Merriam-Webster).
Every detail, no matter how minor, in order to be considered admissible in court, must be supported by evidence, the reliability of which must be sufficiently robust to withstand scrutiny. For the purpose of this exercise, let’ s specify the UK as our legal jurisdiction. Arbitrarily, let’ s assume this to be a criminal court, because it probably best suits 70-80 % of
“ SEO is actually a subfield of forensic science and as such it requires the same investigative approach”
SEO practitioners randomly sampled from the wider, global SEO community.( Stay with me, you’ ll see where I’ m going.)
According to In Brief, a fantastic legal resource from which I took inspiration for this article, under UK criminal law evidence falls into 11 categories, eight of which are either not applicable to our analogy or inadmissible. This leaves us with three remaining types of evidence: evidence; expert evidence; and corroboration.
According to the Crown Prosecution Service’ s definition:“ Expert evidence can be used to assist the court in determining the issues in a case where it is relevant and where the opinion of an expert is needed to give the court a greater understanding of those issues”( 2014).
Because this example is trivial, and considering the CPS guidelines on expert evidence, we do not require any such expert evidence. This leaves us with two remaining types of evidence with which to reach a verdict, reject the case or call an adjournment.
Now read it with your own eyes: google. com / doodles / googles-19thbirthday( or tinyurl. com / ggl19)
I’ ll ask again: is the statement from Google true or false? You might answer one or none of the following:
● ●It sounds reasonably accurate to the best of my knowledge.
●●Why would they lie?
●●What is to gain by making up falsehoods? It’ s actually untrue.
My point, however, is not to pick holes in a statement made by Google. My point relates purely to the importance of taking a forensic approach.
The importance of forensics in SEO Consider the small and ambitious affiliates with plans to do great things. Consider too the big affiliate with a growing team, mouths to feed, and responsibility as an employer.
It doesn’ t matter who you are. Google is a highly optimised technology. It runs the western world’ s largest collective distributed application, employs the world’ s largest AI research team and, based on that very premise, continues to attract talent of the highest calibre.
This results in more innovation than any other organisation on the planet can match. Moreover, the output of its AI research and innovation creates more data as a by-product and direct result of its aggregated intellectual capacity
30 iGB Affiliate Issue 65 OCT / NOV 2017