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From Keywords to Contexts: the New Query Model
From Keywords to Contexts: the New Query Model |
| From Keywords to Contexts: the New Query Model Posted: 25 Aug 2013 04:11 PM PDT Posted by Tom Anthony As SEOs we talk a lot about "search queries" (or simply "searches"), yet I think search has outgrown our definition of what exactly a search query is. In this post I'm going to explain how I think the old definition is fast becoming less and less useful to us, and also how I believe this is going to mean we're going to talk about keywords less and less.
Traditional query modelI recently spoke at Kahenacon in Israel about the evolution of search (deck), where I discussed four trends I identified that were influencing the changes I expect to see in search over the next 3-4 years. I noticed that there was a common theme that kept coming up amongst them: Our understanding of what we mean when we say "query" has become too narrow. The traditional query model is the one where a search query looks like this: This is the keyword-focused model we have always used, and it has served us well for two decades. However, things are changing, and I think we are already at a point where thinking of a search query in this way is inadequate. First, let's examine things from Google's perspective. They want to understand the users intent when they did this search: what the expectation of the user is, what they are looking for, and more specifically, what search results would best help answer their query. Some questions Google might ask about the "london tube stations" query:
There are clearly lots more possible situations, and it is quite hard to determine what the user wants. However, the keyword(s) I type in are not the entire query; they are not everything Google has to go on in order to answer this query. It actually looks more like this to Google: The query consists of the keywords that we explicitly typed in, but also the implicit portion of our request based on our context. With this information, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to determine what the user is likely looking for and what types of response will best help them. Furthermore, my example above only gives me a 3-4 extra data points (location, device, potentially a guess at connection type from IP address and connection speed). However, Google are using a lot more signals than that (at least 57 if you aren't logged in), so I imagine the implicit aspect of the query probably contains a lot more. New query modelI don't think there is a scenario where Google is not using an implicit aspect to a query â€" even if we put aside things such as language and which version of Google you are using. There are multiple facets to what is covered by this implicit search (see the next section on context), but the main takeaway is that the search results are always dependent on some implicit aspects. Therefore, I think we need to adjust our understanding of what a query is. After some discussion in the Distilled office, our initial proposal is relatively simple: If we accept my premise, then it is hard to move backwards from this realisation of what a query actually is. However, a good question at this point might be: does it actually change anything? Before I try to answer that, let me first try to make sure we are all understanding what I mean when I say context. Context: the source of the implicit queryWe've talked a lot about ‘mobile search' and ‘personalised search' over the last few years in the SEO community. However, I believe both of these phrases are too narrow:
Beyond these two examples I imagine there are a whole host of other facets that are responsible for the customisation of the search results. I've begun calling all of these various aspects "context." Context encapsulates both mobile and personalisation, and a whole host of other signals (including those that Google has yet to discover/begin using). The implicit-aspect of queries comes from the users' context, so these two concepts are completely intertwined. I expect that we are going to continue to see more and more context signals being used to drive richer and more detailed implicit-aspects to queries. Just a couple of months ago at Google's I/O conference they announced this new Android API: It allows anyone writing an app for Android to ask the phone whether it believes the user is walking, cycling, or driving. I can certainly imagine this being part of the implicit query â€" a good example being a restaurant search, which might cover a larger radius if I'm in a car than if I am on foot. Furthermore, earlier this year Google acquired Behavio, the team behind funf, the "Social and Behavioural Sensing Framework." This framework basically tries to predict what a user will be doing next based on the current and past states of various sensors on their phone (which wifi networks they've connected to at what times, social proximity, etc.). Imagine a prediction of what you'll be doing next as part of the context of a search. It sounds crazy, yet in some aspects we are already there. Implicit-only searchesWhen Google was founded, Sergey and Larry dreamed of a world where there was no search query at all: He was talking about having no explicit query, and we are rapidly reaching a situation where such searches are a reality; many people report fantastic results from Google Now, where the query is entirely context-based: What does this mean for keywords?For as long as there has been web search engines, there has been SEO, and for as long as there has been SEO, there has been a focus on keywords. I believe we are at a transition point wherein the next 2-3 years is going to see a declining focus on keywords. Imagine the absurdity a couple of years ago if a small-restaurant owner said he wanted to be in position 1 (or even page 1) for the terms "restaurant" or "breakfast." Sure, there are local results, but actually ranking in the "main" results is silly! Then along came the Venice update (post via Mike Ramsay) and suddenly that didn't seem so silly. (Will Critchlow recalls how a 'breakfast' search worked great for him in this Distilled Live video.) Now it is possible for small companies to rank for things like "restaurant," or the "divorce attorney" from Mike's post, but only within certain limited contexts. There are a couple of other points of consideration around the future of keywords:
I did cover some of this stuff in the deck, and it is outside of the scope of this post. However, I will likely be talking about this at SearchLove London in October, and likely writing more about it over the coming months, as I think think the combination of these things means we are going to look back on 2013 and 2014 as an inflection point for search. So, you're saying keywords aren't important?Not quite. As long as people are doing language-driven searches (be it text or spoken word) â€" which is going to be for some time to come â€" keywords are obviously going to be important. What the user explicitly enters as part of their search query is clearly always going to be important. What I'm saying (in this post) is that we need to stop looking at keywords and starting looking at queries â€" which are nowadays so much more than just the keywords. A query will have explicit and implicit aspects, and the explicit aspect could be a chain of several keywords and additional metadata. In addition, the move from indexing to understanding (not really covered in this post â€" see the Distilled Live video and my deck) means that even putting aside the above point, the link between the keywords that the user types in and the keyword(s) Google for which shows listings is no longer as direct as it once was. As Google comes to understand the entities involved, the link becomes far more complex; we'll see some benefits (stop worrying about synonyms and long tail) and some downsides (Google won't grasp all entities and relationships perfectly). Finally, the keywords your users are typing in can be really insightful to understand what their intent is â€" what they really want. This is a point made by AJ Kohn in his recent post on keywords. So, then... what does this mean for doing SEO?That is an excellent question, and I'll start by saying I certainly don't have all of the answers to this. I'm mostly writing this post as this is something we've been talking about at Distilled, but I would really love to hear from the Moz community about your thoughts around this and what you guys think it could mean. A few initial thoughts:
Final wordsI imagine there are potentially going to be some people who rise up to defend keywords, but please realise I'm not saying keywords are dead â€" just that they no longer give the full picture. I think that Google is going to increasingly consider context, and we should begin working out how we can work that into our understanding. Whether you agree/disagree or have a slightly different idea of how we should model this, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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Seth's Blog : Great design = getting people to do what you want
Great design = getting people to do what you want
A copout: "Create a place or a site or a tool that helps the user do whatever the user wants to do."
I think that's just one small subset of what design is. There are only a few situations where what the designer (or her client) wants is for the user to do precisely whatever the user has in mind in the short run.
More often, designers find ourselves working to get the user to want what we want.
The goal is to create design that takes the user's long-term needs and desires into account, and helps him focus his attention and goals on accomplishing something worthwhile.
That well-designed prescription bottle, for example, is well-designed because it gets you to take your medicine even when you forget or don't feel like it. If that wasn't the goal, then a cheap Baggie would do the job.
And that well-designed web site doesn't encourage aimless clicking and eventual ennui. Instead, it pushes the user to come face to face with what's on offer and to decide (hopefully) to engage.
A good airport is designed to encourage travelers not to slow down the journey of their fellows, not to get aimless or distracted (what the traveler wants in the short run) and miss a plane.
A great book cover gets someone who isn't inclined to buy this book (if it had a plain paper wrapper) to pick it up and suddenly want what the author wants--for the reader to want to read it.
Good scissors for kids ought to be fabulous at cutting paper but not so good at cutting sisters, no matter how much little brother wants to.
Unethical design, then, is using the power of design to get the user to do something he regrets. Great design is pushing/focusing the user to do something that he'll thank you for later.
Designing for 'everyone to do anything' is difficult to do well and ultimately a cop out. It absolves the designer of responsibility, sure, but it is also design without intent or generosity.
Great designers can easily answer the question, "what do you want the user to do?"
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