One reader of SEOGypsy interviews Webmetricsguru noted that my statement about Ranking Software being worthless pretty soon was scary …

“…Well, I have to say this was a thorough article. Although I might be a little biased because I was the “one Trail reader asked about setting up conversion funnels (from organic search to conversion)” Nice to get a Guru’s input on the situation.

I think his vision for the future where “all ranking programs are totally meaningless since everyone sees a different set of results”, is actually a bit scary on first thought. However, you do have to think about what these current trends mean, and with all your posts on Personalization you have to have your head in the sand not to pay attention.”

Little did I realize that Google decided to make most Ranking Software obsolete (and they never liked any of the Ranking Software programs, anyway) according to a post in Search Engine Land todayby Matt McGee titled  Google AJAX Search Results = DeathTo Search Term Tracking? where the Ajax’d change in how search results are displayed will also require Web Analytics Platforms to update their code to capture Search Referrals and Keyword Referrals – quite a chunk of many sites traffic.

But, if you think about it – where does Google’s allegiance and interest lie?  Analytics Platforms? (think Google Analytics, that’s it)   Ranking Software?

Google will do whatever it thinks will make it more money and display search results in a way that is faster and easier for it – and being the Market Leader – will expect everyone else to conform – that is their pattern and what they’ve been doing all along – we can expect no different of them now.

[qwidget question="122"]

Ha.  Double Ha….

See that “#” – it’s a hash mark …….

“….a post today from analytics software provider Clicky says it would also have dramatic impact on web analytics tools, those that measure activity from visitors who come to your web site:

“This change breaks search/keyword tracking for every single analytics app in existence…. the fact that Google is even considering doing this, with blatant disregard for the fact that they will be breaking every single analytics, stats, and log analyzer product on the planet, is just amazing.”

Both the Clicky post and this one from Aaron Wall suggest Google may be setting up Google Analytics as the only software that will be able to track keyword referrals from AJAX-based search results. Says Aaron:

“…what happens to existing tools? Plugins? Rank checkers? Stats and other referral tracking packages? All tools that rely on Google passing data in order to work…. Perhaps the only place you’ll be able to get this data is Google Analytics? Is this the next step – a lock-in? It has happened before.”

But analytics tools might be able to account for a hash mark in URLs; it’s just that most of them don’t handle it right now. Nathan Buggia recently wrote about URL fragments (the portion of a URL after a hash mark) on Jane and Robot. In that post, Avinash Kaushik — Google’s Analytics Evangelist — provides a javascript snippet that will allow tracking of URL fragments after the hash mark. If a short piece of Javascript is all it takes to track what comes after the hash mark, most analytics software providers should be able to update their software to accommodate a chance to AJAX-based search results…..”

No doubt, were Google to go ahead and roll out the Ajax’d Search Results universally, as they did with the Google SearchWiki – something that I can image Google doing sometime in the future – all Analytics software will need to make major adjustments (except Google Analytics, which will be set up to track Search Referrals, ha, ha, ha) – and no one doubts that would happen, pronto – still – the RIP on RANKING is already written on the big wall in the sky – read more:

“…. We’ve contacted Google for an official confirmation of the AJAX-based test and a comment on its potential impacts, and will update this post if/when we hear back.

Postscript #1: Sean from Clicky, who authored the post we linked to above, has added some clarification for us.

“Yes, Javascript can be used to track the #hashmarks at the end of the URL. This isn’t the problem though. Javascript has a variable called “document.referrer” that contains the URL of the referrer for the page you are currently looking at. Web browsers don’t store the hash in this variable, so there is no way for us to get it.”

To clarify further, the javascript workaround mentioned in the Jane and Robot post only works to track URLs with hash marks on your own site; it doesn’t work to track hash marks from a referring page.

Postscript #2: A Google spokesperson shares this statement:

“We’re continually testing new interfaces and features to enhance the user experience. We are currently experimenting with a javascript enhanced result page because we believe that it may ultimately provide a faster experience for our users. At this time only a small percentage of users will see this experiment. It is not our intention to disrupt referrer tracking, and we are continuing to iterate on this project. For more information on the experiments that we run on Google search, please see: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/this-is-test-this-is-only-test.html.”

All we get it Google has been playing with Ajax’d Search Results since last fall in select locations.   When you start putting together the changes in the last few months with SearchWiki, add this experiment with Ajax’d Search Results, and add the effects of Personalization that Google is rolling out, more and more (including different results for due to localization) – the death of Universal Ranking – that we all see, more or less, the same #1, #2 and #3 result for the same keyword phrase, is inevitable.

Personally, I think the death of Universal Ranking is a good thing – way too much emphasis was being placed on it.   But we do need to think about what we’ll strive towards in the future, if it’s not Ranking, when it comes to Search Engines.

I have the feeling, in fact, the term “Search Engine” is about to be reinvented.   More about that in a future post.