A new acquaintance recently said to me … 

… there is no possible way that site [myst-technology.com] should rank number one for “Bill French”.

This would be a true statement if we were to assume that we fully understand how Google works at an extremely intimate level. But let's dive into at least the shallow end of this murky pool and see if we can make sense out of this.

When a friend asks you for a restaurant recommendation for the best prime rib dinner, it's possible you might send her to an Italian place that you know (from experience) has created the most amazing prime rib dinners and perhaps you’ve experienced this on may occasions. Even if you knew of a different place that had "Best Prime Rib" in the name, you would be reluctant to recommend that place if you knew it wasn’t good and there were better alternatives. Based on your experience and all the data you have about this request, you are certain your friend is going to be far more satisfied getting prime rib from a Chinese chef at Mama Mia's Pasta House. ;-)

Google is supposed to be like a good friend, recommending the best source of information given a specific query. Google must also look beyond the keywords and terms that a given domain claims the content contains, because if it didn't, it could be easily be gamed into recommending content that was not ideal. We know Google has been a victim of gaming in the past so it’s not surprising that it has the capability to make recommendation for pages that do not physically contain keywords that are in the query string.

The only reasonable explanation for this is that Google is willing to look at alternative rendering architectures to make better recommendations. It's very likely that many of the deeper notions that Google has about content are based solely on the availability of XML, a format that may provide more discrete insights and understanding of information.

Google says MyST's domain is the most relevant place to learn about a person whose likely name is “Bill French” not because of what's necessarily on that page, but because so many references between my name and my domain have occurred and much of the content that you see through the optics known as HTML may not be what Google sees through optics based on a variety of XML resources.

We must [also] recognize that when you query for specific terms, Google uses a variety of heuristics (most of which we know nothing about) to determine the best destination for information about the queried topic. If it wasn't accurate in its assessments, it wouldn't be around for long.

The information highways is littered with search engine carcasses that did not uphold this fundamental tenet - that the search engine must treat every inquiry like it was helping a good friend.

I’m not surprised when businesses contact me to describe online social networking and brand reputation scenarios they find annoying and troublesome; I’ve been cautioning business leaders to use social networks and social publishing as a key source of online reputation management visibility since 2003. I’ve often commented that Google ceased being a search engine 10 years ago – it’s now a reputation engine.

However, a week rarely goes by when I don’t hear from at least one that hasn’t taken my advice to fortify their online reputation with some earnest degree of non-trivial participation in the read-write web.

A close business acquaintance (not a client) recently tossed out this thought in an email with a predictable tone of desperation.

Internet related postings and structures have a significant influence (beyond the recession) on the degree to which people find us, inquire, and/or buy our services and the degree to which our competitors are able to literally water-down and usurp our visibility to their advantage.

Customers, the media, competitors and journalists are busy shaping your online brand reputation using every manner of social content publishing and networking environment they can find. If you don’t participate effectively, how can you possibly expect your online reputation to reflect your own marketing message and product positioning?

The acquaintance goes on (I’m paraphrasing to conceal identity of course) to say…

Two competitors have literally moved into a Wikipedia page that should be about my company and undermined it in a couple of different ways: (i) they positioned themselves front and center in the page; (ii) they made the description of our core philosophy innocuous by focusing the discussion away from my company’s mission and core values.

Setting aside the misconception that Wikipedia is ripe grounds for marketing influence, links to opposing (or complementary) viewpoints, whether it’s from competitors or not, is Wikipedia’s purpose. To effectively balance competitive threats that manifest in Wikipedia, you must have something worthwhile to link to related to the topic of interest – preferably lots (and lots) of domain expertise that establishes you and your firm as thought leaders. The body of influence must be so significant that no Wikipedia editor could find reason to leave it off the page.

There are many ways to achieve this, but these three things come to mind as the most important.

1. A dominant and high-quality content based deeply indexed and organically findable across all major search channels.
2. A collection of tightly connected and purposefully integrated social networking presences.
3. A consistent and scalable social participation strategy that includes significant elements of both publishing and listening.

While these strategic attributes translate into a large number of business and technical requirements that seem to grow in scope every day, it is possible to simplify and streamline your online brand reputation by outsourcing some of the requirements to services and technology that wisely leverage automation and integration. Trying to chip away at your brand reputation objectives without a comprehensive strategy and tools to bring success into focus, is unlikely to produce competitive results.

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See Also

• Google Buzz
  Start conversations about the things you find interesting. Share updates, photos, videos and more with your friends.
• Buzz by Jason Calacanis from Twitter
  Twitter MUST respond to Google Buzz with a) enclosures and b) longer posts and c) threaded messages. @ev @biz @fredwilson @bijan #googlebuzz