Interactive Marketing Blog

What do you think of when hearing “Reference Extract”? I’m just as confused as you. Apparently, the reference extract project is an attempt to help people find the best information on the web. Why not use search engines? As you may know, search engines (Google) favor sites with many inbound links and rank sites using an algorithm. This approach takes out some of the human element of selecting the most relevant information. A web site may not be the best possible resource for your search, but since it has many links and content it will rise to the top.

The goal of RE project is to insert the human element, in this case librarians, back into finding information. The video below helps explain the reference extract project and how it can be used to help search engines determine trust. I’m not totally clear on the status of this project, but worth exploring.

Lately I have been paying more attention to my inbound keywords in Google Analytics. I have noticed some strange keywords that I have not optimized for on site appearing in my keyword reports. Some of the keywords appearing are “West Virgina SEO”. Since I have not mentioned or optimized for West Virginia SEO terms on my blog or web site, the only source I could draw these terms from is my @seanhecking Tweets on Twitter. The Tweets were about a trip to the WV that I took a couple weeks ago.

This could have just been a test Google was running on social media relevance, but I think it’s an example of where things may be headed in search engine algorithms. We know that having links from other web sites with content around those links describing your optimized keywords is essential for top rankings. Are search engines taking it one step further and giving more weight to social profiles and the relevance of their surrounding terms to your web site?