Ofcom, public service news and the “arms race”
An interesting reference to search engine optimisation made by Ofcom seems to have gone widely unnoticed, perhaps because it was buried down at the end of the report. In its second public service broadcasting review earlier this month, the watchdog referred to a SEO “arms race”.
It noted that search portals are now the main starting point for the “vast majority of online experiences”, with 88 per cent of all searches conducted by Britons being made through one single provider - it is not too hard to guess which.
However, Ofcom claimed that there is a battle underway between search providers and marketers - namely between those focused on offering the consumer relevant results and those determined to drive valuable traffic to their commercial website.
It suggested that this puts public service content, such as news, at a disadvantage as providers of that kind of information do not have a similar commercial drive.
Now, Ofcom is questioning what to do to ensure such important content is not buried beneath an online content avalanche. Is intervention necessary to ensure audiences can easily find public service information? Should steps be taken to enhance the online presence of such content?
This is a difficult issue. If search engines are to be made to prioritise certain content then what agency or person should be the one to exercise editorial control over what makes the grade? It really highlights the difficulties of policing or controlling something as stuffed with information, opinion and assertion as the web.
Rationally, it’s both the algorithms and the SEO efforts which must work more and more in tandem, thus improving, in order for, as one example, public service content to witness better distribution — the post suggests that there’d be an appropriate economic and purely objective method/rationale for “an agency or person” prioritizing SERP links.
Comment by Chris Regan — April 18, 2008 @ 6:46 pm