Why I like Google Plus better than Kevin James

October 25, 2012 By Digital Operative,

Unlike Kevin James, Google plus actually made people laugh. The extreme lack of public enthusiasm for Google Plus coupled with Google’s mantra of “Everything is going just how we planned it” was downright funny – unlike every Kevin James movie ever made. Recently, the fortune of Google Plus changed, the social network is no longer an internet punchline. In fact, Google values the information it gleans from Google Plus so much that it is now an influential part of Google’s search algorithm. Example of what Google plus does to the search results: [caption id="attachment_1975" align="aligncenter" width="545" caption="Happy little face on Google Plus"]

[/caption] I noticed the influence of Google Plus in the search results when happy little faces popped up next to search result items. Strange I thought – there were never faces there before. I looked into this “people’s faces” phenomenon and saw this new facet of the search results page was directly related to Google Plus; it has to do with the rel= tag. (Here is a rock star article about how to add Google Plus to integrate in WordPress.) Google search has been increasing its reliance on social signals, specifically Google Plus, becoming more and more apparent every day. These changes are beneficial to every aspect of the internet and are extremely positive. This is the opposite of Kevin James who spends his time ruining the movie industry, the television industry, and overall society for making Americans seem dumb. As my friend/blogger/author of the upcoming book "The Male Blueprint" Dave Booda says, "Kevin James is doing for motion pictures what Homer Simpson did for prime time TV, he demonstrates all the bad stereotypes of the adult male archetype". So without further ado I present: Why I like Google Plus better than Kevin James.

Reason 1 - Why I don't like Kevin James: He continues to get work.

Kevin James continues to get work. In many ways my experiences with Kevin James are similar to the trials and tribulations of Galileo Galilei. Galileo knew for sure that the sun does not revolve around the earth, yet everyone else on the planet continued to persist that the opposite is true. I know for a fact that Kevin James is not funny and yet the world continues to give him work. I have taken the time and responsibility when researching this article to watch the King of Queens. I am surprised that they even got the laugh track to laugh. It was Bad (with a capital B). However, when discussing Kevin James and my intense dislike for him, really only one movie needs to be mentioned – Paul Blart, Mall Cop (PBMC). Sadly once, I was on a long distance flight and the airline chose to show PBMC. Perhaps, the airline thought that if the movie were so terrible we would not complain about receiving a Trader Joes sample size bag of pretzels for an 8 hour flight. I tried to view PBMC with my positive rule of thumb: even in unfunny movies at least one joke will be funny. Somehow, my rule of thumb was broken. I grew more desperate that something, anything would click and I would be validated in my time I put into watching the movie. As the credits rolled I just want those hours of my life back. None, not even joke one produced a chuckle.

Reason 1 - Why I like Google Plus: The Google Plus influence on the search algorithm uses human responses rather than scammy link building techniques.

In the old cavemen days of search engine optimization, SEO’s paid “writers” savagely low wages to churn out mass quantities of keyword rich articles. These articles provided no value other than tricking the search algorithm, and were then posted online and linked to pages the SEO wanted to rank well for. This process creates a giant ocean of uselessness that Google has to wade through to find sites that the searcher actually wants. All while being tricked every step along the way. This method of SEO’s gaming the system penalizes everyone involved:

The user performing a search is penalized, as they are taken to a page that duped the algorithm rather than the one with the best information.
Google is penalized because the user has a bad experience with their search engine. The result to this type of scammy link building is a bad match and unnatural match – like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (I knew it would never last!)
The website itself is penalized as users view the page but leave immediately since it is not what they were looking for.
Even the worker writing the articles is penalized because the pay is so minimal.

Google Plus makes steps towards alleviating this problem by looking at social signals from actual humans. When a website is +1’ed it shows Google that an actual human has found this to be useful in some capacity. The more actual humans find something useful and worth sharing, the more likely it will be useful when it shows up on SERPs. By utilizing social signals Google takes a quantum leap forward in making SEPRPs more relevant and less likely (though not impossible) to be scammed.

Reason 2 - Why I dislike Kevin James: He made the following movie:

Reason 2 - Why I like Google Plus: Google rewards authors who are knowledgeable and authoritative about their subject matter.

Google Plus rewards authors who are authoritative on a subject for putting out consistently thought-provoking, quality pieces; which real people will share. The idea of rewarding specific authors rather than sites has broad internet implications that are beneficial to all parties. A good analogy: think of a good comedian – unlike Kevin James – say we are talking about the late Greg Giraldo. He could be in a small club in New York or on one of his many fantastic roasts. Whenever he performed what made the show great was not the physical room itself, but the performer – the room was just a vessel. In the same way it doesn't matter if Avinash Kaushik posts about analytics on his home blog or some other blog. Where he writes is just the vessel and his actual content should be ranked based on his ability to put out interesting, informative, content that people cannot keep to themselves. The whole internet ecosystem benefits from rewarding authors for consistently writing well thought-out posts, which real users are looking to share. Adam Lundquist is the search marketing expert for Digital Operative. if you have any questions about PPC or SEO, he is your guy. Additionally he has loads of early 90's references (look for some Shawn Kemp ones coming up!) Connect with me on Google+