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Earlier this week, we reported that Google Suggest was going to become more mainstream -- that is, that it would be the search default. Essentially, Google would "choose" the search phrases you were aiming to search for. This decision has been already challenged as search engine marketers wonder the consequences of this decision.
On Sphinn, lots of debate is cropping up about how this will change the face of SEM -- for good. In one post, we see 9 ways how the decision will impact search marketing. Some of these include the negative impact to long tail searches, more traffic to regional sites, and less opportunity to capitalize on misspellings, among others.
In another post, Google Suggest is thought to "completely change the query landscape" because the drop-down box may offer you suggestions that will change your mind on the search phrase you may have aimed to look for initially. The same concerns (capitalization on misspellings and long tail optimization) are brought up in this post as well.
However, that's not all. Martin Bowling explains that Google Suggest is a reputation management nightmare. Using an illustration for Obama, one sees that a lot of 'common' searches include 'obama antichrist' and 'obama muslim,' search phrases you wouldn't think of (or would you?). Because of effective reputation management, though, the actual SERPs for "Obama" hardly show any of those negative pages, but the bitter taste doesn't really leave your mouth. This can eventually grow over time and the reputation management dangers could increase. Indeed, that is a bit worrisome.
There are a lot of related discussions on Sphinn:
