07 April 2011

PANDA... A Clue into the Minds Of the Googleplex



In the last month I have written two pieces on Google's PANDA algorithm "upgrade".

The first piece release shortly after the algorthm was released was from an analysis on SEOmoz. The second was an allegory of Google's behavior compared to Coke's ill fated "New Coke" launch from Webpro News.

Well folks - here is another one. iCrossing who describe their services thus:

"Travel to great lengths for your customers. Whether it’s online or offline, your customers want a great travel experience with your brand. Are you living up to the promise? Using iCrossing’s brand monitoring services and social network mapping tools, we can provide a comprehensive, up-to-date scorecard of what’s being said about your brand, and where. Then we devise a strategy to help you counter criticism and improve your image, or play up your strengths when you find customers are responding positively to an aspect of your business you hadn’t considered."

Amongst their clients in the Travel space are:

AAA
Bermuda Department of Tourism
Dollar Thrifty
Fairmont Hotels
Pleasant Holidays
Vail Resorts (including Snow.com)
Virgin Holidays

They have an interesting analysis on their website on how PANDA does actually benefit big brands. Their analysis is from two sectors - travel and banking.

Adding to the analysis WebPro News also pulled some archive video from the guy some of us like to hate Matt Cutts - who is the Googleplex's point man on search design.

My point however is to connect some of the dots. Google is position itself to be more attractive to the bigger brands for a reason. I don't believe that this is just happenstance. Smaller universe to control could be just one of the many possible reasons.

For Travel it means that the tight inventory of Web Real Estate is about to get tighter which in turn drives up costs and rates - AND revenues for the Googleplex

In my view the evolving vision gives the Googleplex everything it wants. Let's watch out - this could be a portent of things to come from Google.

Feb22 was no accident, and the favouring of big brands is a focused deliberate act.

Cheers

No comments: