Google is constantly on the lookout for new and more effective ways to deliver their search engine results. In fact, when we look at the core of their mission, “ranking websites according to their relevance” is nowhere to be found. Google is about something entirely else.
And that something is providing answers to the problems that people are putting in the main search field. Sometimes those answers are solved through links, but other times everything is handled inside Google, provided that the question has a specific and definite answer.
For example, if you input “100 USD to EUR” into the search field, the first thing you get is a currency converter box, and only beneath it you’ll start seeing actual site links.
Google is very likely to shift towards such solutions in the future, which can make our job of ranking websites much harder. In fact this is what the whole Knowledge Graph launch was about – “to provide answers, not just links.”
Lately, there’s been a new concept circulating around, it’s called the Knowledge Vault. Although it was described just as a research paper, if it ever gets implemented, its consequences will be huge for SEOs and affiliate marketers alike.
The Knowledge Vault is meant to be the biggest database of knowledge in human history, where the records can be assembled from content across the internet without human editorial involvement. Then once the data is there, it can be mined and used to come up with answers to almost every kind of question.
This all sounds very interesting when we look at it from a human perspective. After all, who wouldn’t want Google to simply be able to give them a solution to what they’re looking for, instead of throwing out a bunch of links and suggesting, “Hey, your answer could be in one of these places.”
But this does create a serious problem for people who create content and want it to be seen. Actually, there are two problems:
1. If your content is not “correct” then no amount of optimization will be able to get it featured in Google. At which point SEO becomes nonexistent.
2. If your content is just a retold story and the core of your message has already been said then Google won’t display it either. Why would they, if they already have the original stuff?
Thankfully, Knowledge Vault isn’t in active development right now (as admitted by Google) and it’s only in the theoretical phase. There are, however, various other models of a knowledge base being worked on, so who knows what will sprout up for Google Search in the next couple of years.