Web 2.0 is all about two way communications. Blogs, message boards, forums provide a great platform to interact and exchange highly contextual information.

However all these platforms are not very search engine friendly and many of them shy away from Search engine listings through a ‘non follow tag’ (something that annoys the Search Engine Experts). Also noteworthy is that users tend to trust articles and search listings that have been endorsed by fellow users in a community, forum, blog etc. This patent from Google explores the possibility of listing WebPages in response to a query using generic search as well as the member network search. The results obtained from the two sources are then combined and reranked, based on certain ranking criteria, and are presented to the user.
Let us look at the method works:

1. The user signs up for a member network (e.g.: Orkut) and creates a profile on the same
   
   
2. A search query is submitted to Google which is connected to the member network database of Orkut
   
   
3. The Search engine retrieves results in the form of links/article identifiers.
   
   
4. Each link/article identifier is provided with an ‘endorse’ link which the user can click upon.
   
   
5. Clicking on the endorse link  will take you to a window/page wherein the user can either positively or negatively endorse the article or provide a rating from 1 to 5 or add comments on the quality of the article.
   
   
6. Once the user has endorsed the article , the search engine stores the information on the articles in Orkut’s database
   
   
7. The information would include
1. User Identification
2. List of other users in Orkut who have varying degrees of association with the user’s profile
3. List of endorsed articles along with the endorsements provided for each article

Confused about Degree of Association? Let’s understand what it means before proceeding ahead:

Member profiles in a member network associate with each other on friendships, Business Interests, Family, Communities, School, and College etc.

The strength of a friendship association would obviously be more than that of a Business association and hence can be accorded a higher weight. Again a Friendship association in itself could have varying degrees of association. For example on Orkut when sending or receiving a friend request you are allowed to choose the degree of friendship. The options provided are

1. Haven’t met
2. Acquaintance
3. Friend
4. Good Friend
5. Best Friend

The degree of association for Best Friend would obviously be more than the degree of association for an acquaintance. The degree of association would play a role in weighing the importance (ranking) and relevancy of articles.
Let us now return to the method:

1. Another user (B) submits a query to Google
2. Google performs two types of searches :
   
   
1. A regular search wherein it retrieves links/article identifiers
2. A search of Orkut’s database for articles previously endorsed on the same search query. It does so 1)by identifying associated members for B , the degree of associations and the articles endorsed by them 2) by implicit profile associations across Orkut based on similar profiles, similar interests, query entered by the user etc.
   
   
3. Google merges the results obtained from h) and i) to obtain a final search result
4. The Ranking of the merged results would be based on 1) the type and/or degree of associations between B and the other users of the member network and 2) the degree of trust of each user(as defined by B) in the member network

The patent also provides the scope of providing financial opportunities to both Google and the users who endorse the articles. Google earns through providing these listings on their website and each user who endorses a web site can be paid on each click through Google could also earn through retaining a portion of the monetary compensation provided to the endorsing user.

Conclusion

A focus on the latest moves or intended moves by Google always helps in defining new avenues of growth for your company. It could be in terms of a new revenue model, a new avenue for advertising or simply tweaking your existing processes. As we have observed the above patents provide tremendous opportunities in advertising and generating revenue.

With the scope of Online Marketing extending to beyond the online media into offline media, the one thing that remains constant is the focus on Good quality Content. With Personalized search becoming a priority for Google the authority to rank an article is slowly being handed to the end user. The end user needs relevancy and relevancy implies quality content. As SEO firm if the fundamentals are right in terms of quality content, ethical and best practices for On Page Optimization, Off Page Optimization and On Site Optimization have been implemented and the focus is always on the end user rather than on a top listing you are pretty much set to ride the Google wave.