Universal Search and the Impact on SEM

The big news this week is that Google is rolling out Universal Search. Danny Sullivan describes it as “the most radical change to its search results ever”.

So what is it? This is what I can gather after reading a few different blog reports:

1. Google has different indexes for different types of data such as web pages, images, video, blogs, news etc. Currently when you do a search you mostly get web pages and occasionally images depending on the query. When Universal Search is rolled out, results will be drawn from all of these media types and blended together on the main results page. This will depend on the search query and how relevant Google determines particular data types to be. So for some queries you might still get a list of web pages. For others there will be a mix of web, video, images etc.
2. These results have always been available from a navigation menu on the Google search page. What is new is that the user won’t have to specifically request different types of results by clicking on the navigation links. Google will present a selection of results on one page depending on what is considered most relevant for the query.
3. The searcher can still have an input to this. So, if for example “video” wasn’t initially included as a relevant data type, the searcher can opt to include videos in the search.

The impact from an SEO viewpoint:

1. Searchers will be much more aware of the full range of media options whereas previously they’ve been somewhat hidden from the average person who doesn’t explore the nav menu. Consequently, there will be much more incentive to optimise for video, image, news etc if these results are going to have far greater prominence. How to optimise is going to be important and early players in this game will have an advantage.
2. The competition for page one spots for web pages will be greater. For some search queries there may only be 5 or 6 spots available.

The impact in Australia?:

1. There might be a delay in the rollout of Universal Search here. I haven’t seen any specific mention of timelines for specific countries so we may see it at the same time as users in the US or we may get to see the impact there before it comes into play here.
2. There are opportunities for people who take advantage of the changes early on. I haven’t paid that much attention to the other data types so far but I searched in “video” for a popular, competitive keyword relevant to one of my clients. There was only one result so if that was blended into the main search page the impact would be noticeable.

The impact on paid search?:

1. Will it make paid search more desirable? I’m not sure whether they have to be looked at as two separate things entirely or whether you take the attitude that there are 20 slots on the page and it might be easier to pay for an ad than optimise for video. I don’t know yet.
2. Also, I’m wondering how users will react to these changes. Presumably, the usability tests have been done but if users find the organic results less relevant rather than more relevant then I think they are more likely to look to the paid ads to find what they want.

Any thoughts?