When Google said it was adding “real time” search to its platform, most saw this as a logical addition which made sense. Few recognised the pandora’s box which was about to open enabling ‘reputation management’ to move centrestage giving reputation managers everywhere a business filip which fully justified the investment in brand, reputation and image.
Traditionally, web search results pages have actually changed relatively slowly. Then universal search came along, now real search has made that speed almost instant. When corporate marketers realise that “tweets” criticising their brand name can actually appear above their normal first position rank in the web results, we can expect them to want to react and to take some sort of action.
Of course, “real time search”, like other developments before it such as “universal search” has not yet been rolled out to languages other than English – thankfully. You have to expect that it will change its format significantly before the rest of the world receives it which is a good thing.
The big issue is that real time is currently presenting results which I’m guessing people are not actually searching for on Google. For once, you could argue that rather than not filtering spam, Google is actually creating spam links by fetching link results which have little to to with the original intention of the user.
If it stays like this, then a lot of clever people will be rushing offer reputation management solutions to their clients which aim to prevent their competitors and non-fans from littering their brand related pages with comments and utterings that are uncomplimentary.
Andy Atkins-Kruger
Latest posts by Andy Atkins-Kruger (see all)
- Launching our new concept – Webcertain In-house! - July 26, 2019
- Yes, the robots are here and they’re running Google Ads! - April 10, 2019
- Be prepared: A personal message from Webcertain’s CEO - May 15, 2018
