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I have been thinking about Google SearchWiki experiment and what would happen if they implemented it into standard search results.

Google SearchWiki…

…allows you to influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again while you are logged in to your Google account, you’ll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you’ve made.

Other users taking part in this experiment are also able to see the changes you make.

Hmm, that made me think. What if Google is trying to do something like Digg, where the best content is naturally put on first page if it is popular enough? Just think about that for a moment. What if Google will add certain value to websites based on their popularity among Google users in order to rank them in “organic” search results? Google is already using human beings to rate websites (Google rater job). What if they want to do the same thing, but stop paying anyone?

“Google SearchWiki popularity rank” would be the next PageRank, but calculated not by a mathematical algorithm, but by human beings! Of course it has to be limited in some way to reject the attempts to spam or artificially influence the rankings. But, wait, isn’t Google dealing with that already, every day?

Google is constantly trying to emulate human behavior, so thats why they test that kind of solution. They try to see what people actually like, in its most direct form - by voting. If i like the site - i put it up in search results, if i dont like it - i vote against it. Isn’t that cool?

Maybe it is, but how can you optimize websites for the new “SearchWiki popularity rank”? i can see only one way: Write great content. A content that many people will like and promote.

How could people cheat it? There are many ways, but it would be interesting to see how it evolves.

For the beginning Google could implement the experiment only to all registered users, so only those who are logged in to their accounts can see the “SearchWiki popularity rank” search results for any keyword. Later, if the experiment is successful (im still thinking about the criteria, bu which the experiment would be successful) Google could enable all visitors to see the results.

But that would rise new implications. A non-registered, non-verified user could rank (vote) for websites. And that would let spammers to do their job more easier. Just change the IP address and they can vote for any site from many Ip addresses. I guess thats what Google have to consider before they would release the SearchWiki to all users.

It would be amazing to see “SearchWiki popularity rank” in action. Would Wikipedia still appear so high on so many keywords? Would that mean that more niche websites could be promoted higher in SERP’s? What about SEO? How that would change? Any ideas?