I had a short interview yesterday, and the question was “What do you want Google to bring for Christmas?” My answer was “easier algorithms”. OK, maybe “easy” wasn’t the right word, I should’ve said something like “standardized” or even “fare” and this is my thought behind this answer.

We have a pretty good understandings of the algorithm. We know about the keyword, the links, the TLD’s, the hosting, etc., but we also know that even though you are dealing with the same Google, what seems to be the good practice isn’t always so in other market. For example, the link strategies that works in US market may not be the best approach in other markets even though Google tells you it works the same.

No matter how easy or complex the algorithm is, as long as many sites compete to be on the 1st page where only 10 links are available, SEO will play an important part of your search strategy. Social media is great, but what we found from the surveys is that people don’t always click a link in blog or tweets or on facebook posting right there. They remember what they saw, and later when the need for such brands, services or products arise, they search for it to find out more about them. Social media triggers people to search more. And, when people search and come to the site, things like the content on the website/pages and the usability of the website makes the difference in converting the visitors to the users and ultimately to new customers. My concern is that due to more complex algorithm, the website owners are so focused on the optimization, and forget why you have the website in the first place. It’s for people, not for the search engines.

I see that Google trying to bring more localized (location centric) search results lately. This is great if you are looking for the information provided locally, but sucks when you want to find the information available on web in general. If you are in US, it is almost impossible to find websites in Australia, even through the sites in Australia are in English. Google almost limits what you should find in the search results. I appreciate their thought on this, but really not helping the search users in my opinion.

It also have a huge impact on website owners, especially to the small and medium size business owners who has been doing well on Internet using one English website to target multiple English speaking markets. I guess Google wants you to spend money on AdWords to target those non-local markets. But that’s not helping the site owners and the search users.

I guess my answers to the question is, “I want Google to realize that the people are not always looking for the information available locally, and give an option to search locally or globally.”