The three dimensions of valuable visibility

Who would ever watch 447,000 videos on any topic, for instance, in order to understand investment opportunities? And who would ever look at 227 million websites to find out how to become an author? Admittedly, every single video creator and every single runner of a website, blog or just Facebook account that can be found with a search engine achieves visibility for their topic on Google – at least theoretically. If you are not among the first few hits in the Google search results list, you will most likely never be found.

As has already been hinted at, the plethora of information and the democratic chance of making one’s information visible leads to another problem: access rates for web pages, for instance, that appear on the second page of Google’s search results list are statistically already below 1 percent of total clicks of the overall search results. And this statistics obviously does not improve for Google’s possibly hundreds of other search result pages – and we are only talking about one average search entry. Once again, the Internet with its (theoretically possible) visibility has its downside: all those not right at the top of the list are invisible.

Establishing relevance is the second step taken by Google and other search engines when dealing with information, i.e. ranking content for visibility. Highly developed algorithms, which increasingly strive for artificial intelligence, filter and sort information to then present it tailored to each individual Google user. First off, this is a truly impressive service. Google takes its users’ personal and demographic characteristics into account, scans and analyzes the websites’ information, and then tries to match said information with search queries.

Being a free-of-charge search engine is obviously not a suitable business model for Google. However, this is exactly where Google can create relevance for its customers, establishing another, relevant business model. If a user experiences Google as a preferred channel for quick and unerring information gathering on certain topics, then they will associate Google with relevance – for their problem of the first order, namely the search query just made. And also for their problem of the second order, namely finding and filtering the insane amount of information found online.

Google offers its customers a direct shortcut to information, thus satisfying customer needs, and strives to suggest the most relevant hit out of 447,000 video results for each user. Just how impressively precise Google’s approach is can be seen each time we pull astonished faces when Google has already anticipated the topics we are talking about: “One minute we’re talking about our holiday, and the next Google gives me hotel suggestions …”

Just as impressive and illuminating in terms of this service’s precision is the fact that Facebook, which is also highly developed in its use of similar algorithms, can probably predict its users’ behavior better than their closest (real, not virtual) friends. For instance, after only ten likes, Facebook can predict a user’s behavior better than a work colleague would. After about 150 likes – and that can be an afternoon of using Facebook for some users – it is better at the predictions than someone’s siblings. And after 300 interactions with the platform, Facebook can make a better personality analysis than the user’s own life partner.1

While researchers at Cambridge University took the circuitous route in researching this and were only able to tap into certain Facebook data with a meta-software, Facebook’s algorithms can draw on user data much better and with less obstructions. This goes to show the amount of power that modern networks like Google and Facebook have – just from the data they collect and the algorithms they continually develop with it.

So what about the business model? Google and Facebook can be extremely precise in their filtering of information for users – and then sell this now predictable user behavior and interests to advertisers. This is how Google achieves relevance: users alone cannot provide orientation in the noise of all that accessible information. So they experience Google itself as a relevant provider for their need for orientation in the jungle of the plethora of information.

The good news for companies: they could also do this! And without having to trade in information for it.