How Temporal Data Can Cut Your Search Engine Traffic
Not too long ago, having a website in the top spot of a search engine results page came with a certain amount of security. There wasn’t a whole lot of volatility, and you could see a real spike in traffic if a sudden news event led to more searches, or you anticipated a surge in search traffic far enough in advance to get some good SEO in place.
Over the past few years, search engines have moved toward “temporal” results, which basically means that they want to show more newsworthy things in real time. After search engines were caught off guard by their lack of relevancy in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death, there has been a concerted effort to provide newsworthy search matches within minutes, not hours. Obviously, there is a level of expectation among the searching public that search engines will have real-time news, although many experienced search engine users would expect news in the general results to be a bit more dated. Google’s upcoming Caffeine Update is expected to bring even more focus to temporal data, so even the most carefully constructed optimization campaign may be supplanted by breaking news.
The advent of real-time search may be a benefit for search engine users, but it isn’t going to be useful for people who are using SEO to make money online, unless they have established news sites. When news stories hit, thousands of news sources will flood the temporal results, and they have a built-in trust factor that is not going to be extended to the average website. Several sites, including Wikipedia, YouTube, and IMDB (for movie news) can suddenly leapfrog over established sites. If you have a site about an upcoming movie (or a series of them) you may see your rankings for several keywords get lost among reviews at CNN, the Chicago Sun Times, and multiple online outlets.
Seasonality can also create temporal results that are hard to combat. For instance, if you’re running a “Black Friday” site, then you’re probably expecting to get all your traffic in the weeks before the day after Thanksgiving. However, more and more news sites are revealing “leaked” Black Friday ads, so unless Google recognizes you as the #1 authority for Black Friday Specials and Bargains, then you’re probably going to get buried under web pages that didn’t exist yesterday.
What should you do if temporal search results sink your site? Sometimes the best move is no move at all. Part of the “temporal” nature of newsworthy web results is that they are meant to disappear after a certain amount of time. Obviously, you may want to update your site’s content if recent news impacts your own site, or you can capture the audience looking for follow-up information. The unfortunate nature of faster algorithms and real-time search results is that you may experience a drop in sales at a time when you expect them to peak, or you will get diminished exposure instead of what you planned to get prior to the advent of temporal results. Ideally, you should be able to regain your lost rankings when the news dies down, and you may be able to apply some knowledge of the experience as a hedge against future events.
Over the past few years, search engines have moved toward “temporal” results, which basically means that they want to show more newsworthy things in real time. After search engines were caught off guard by their lack of relevancy in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death, there has been a concerted effort to provide newsworthy search matches within minutes, not hours. Obviously, there is a level of expectation among the searching public that search engines will have real-time news, although many experienced search engine users would expect news in the general results to be a bit more dated. Google’s upcoming Caffeine Update is expected to bring even more focus to temporal data, so even the most carefully constructed optimization campaign may be supplanted by breaking news.
The advent of real-time search may be a benefit for search engine users, but it isn’t going to be useful for people who are using SEO to make money online, unless they have established news sites. When news stories hit, thousands of news sources will flood the temporal results, and they have a built-in trust factor that is not going to be extended to the average website. Several sites, including Wikipedia, YouTube, and IMDB (for movie news) can suddenly leapfrog over established sites. If you have a site about an upcoming movie (or a series of them) you may see your rankings for several keywords get lost among reviews at CNN, the Chicago Sun Times, and multiple online outlets.
Seasonality can also create temporal results that are hard to combat. For instance, if you’re running a “Black Friday” site, then you’re probably expecting to get all your traffic in the weeks before the day after Thanksgiving. However, more and more news sites are revealing “leaked” Black Friday ads, so unless Google recognizes you as the #1 authority for Black Friday Specials and Bargains, then you’re probably going to get buried under web pages that didn’t exist yesterday.
What should you do if temporal search results sink your site? Sometimes the best move is no move at all. Part of the “temporal” nature of newsworthy web results is that they are meant to disappear after a certain amount of time. Obviously, you may want to update your site’s content if recent news impacts your own site, or you can capture the audience looking for follow-up information. The unfortunate nature of faster algorithms and real-time search results is that you may experience a drop in sales at a time when you expect them to peak, or you will get diminished exposure instead of what you planned to get prior to the advent of temporal results. Ideally, you should be able to regain your lost rankings when the news dies down, and you may be able to apply some knowledge of the experience as a hedge against future events.
Labels: temporal data, temporal results
posted by Patrick Hare at
3:30 PM
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