I Looked At Your Search Keywords. I Know Your Intentions.
Someone lent me a very good book titled “The Search” by John Battelle. In it, you could pretty much read the history of Search. It includes information on the major search engines - how they have evolved and developed. You will also discover the concept of “Database of Intentions.”
You see, online search today reflects our intentions. When we type in “map of manila,” for instance, we have already submitted information about what we need. It is a reflection of what we intend to do. When we search for more info and use keywords like “route to Libis, QC”, “traffic information”, etc., we are unconsciously feeding the computer more clues. If someone looked at your keywords searches today, they could pretty much guess what you are doing, right?
John Battelle expresses it clearly.
The Database of Intentions is simply this: The aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result. It lives in many places, but three or four places in particular hold a massive amount of this data (ie MSN, Google, and Yahoo). This information represents, in aggregate form, a place holder for the intentions of humankind - a massive database of desires, needs, wants, and likes that can be discovered, supoenaed, archived, tracked, and exploited to all sorts of ends. Such a beast has never before existed in the history of culture, but is almost guaranteed to grow exponentially from this day forward.
John expresses it in broad terms. The fact is, even individual preferences can be tracked. This kind of information can be leveraged to offer more products (and get companies more money).
That’s what online marketers do today. Very talented ones know what you need before you need it. And the marketing is done automatically.
How is this done? Just look at the information you can get from installing analytics tracking software on your web site. You can find out what keywords people used to arrive to your site. You can determine the IP address of a visitor. You can even find out where they went to next after leaving your website. If visitors leave a message on your site, there is a good chance you will also know the name and email address.
What if you could automate everything…so that if you’ve determined this is a buyer looking for reviews of a product, you could send them more product info (and hopefully make a sale)? What if you could determine a visitor’s intention? That is an online marketer’s dream system.
That’s the price of readily accessible information. People also know that you are looking for that information.
[This article is part of the Experiencing the Philippines series. Subscribe now and read some more.]
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Comments
I get lots of traffic for “map of manila,” “metro manila map,” etc. I don’t have anything to serve them, though (Except ads. hehe)
If you have got something better, I’ll send them to you!
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