Google Print
So as of late May, Google print in all its beta glory is now live. And, as is often the case with the G-men and women, they’re generating some controversy. Temporarily, at least, we’d like to look past publishing rights and IP issues and examine two other elements of the service: what you can actually DO at first glance; and the curious question of whether there’s a way to do SEO for books.
What You Can Actually Do
The standard Google understated entry-interface is right there, and as with the original box way back when, the new user feels an odd sense of trepidation. Or at least I did. We’re trained to search databases, like Amazon, for books, not search books using a database. So the automatic reflex is to type in an author or a title. But that’s sort of missing the point. This, duh, is more like a liaison between a card catalogue in a library and the book itself. Type in “archery” and you’ll get thousands of hits and nearly as many books on the topic. And you can click on each of them to drill down further. The type and amount of content varies according to the deals that Google struck with the publishers and libraries that control a given book - but usually it’s at least as much stuff as you would have to hand in a bookstore or library. That is, front and back cover and blurbs; excerpts, even whole chapters or the entire book (if it’s in the public domain). Additionally, of course, you can also link to reviews and booksellers to buy the thing.
SEO For Books?
Of course, the paradigm is not without flaws - and this is where we get a little curious. And where one again runs smack into Google’s mysterious algorithms. Why does “Precision Archery” get the top spot on the first page? And “North American Pinot Noir” the tenth spot on the fitst page? Apparently, “North American Pinot Noir” owes its below-the-fold placement to the fact that Archery Summit Estate in Oregon gets some face time in that reference book for oenophiles. But I wonder whether it really deserves to bump “Bow and Arrow: The Comprehensive Guide to Equipment, Technique, and Competition” to the second page? Almost assuredly not, if you are searching for “archery.”
Google, in its documentation of the service aimed at publishers, is very clear in its messaging. “Google Print helps you sell more books by helping our global search audience find them.” Gotcha. But that won’t really happen if people’s books don’t pop up on the first two pages… and if they aren’t relevant (viz. the wine example), if Google in general is any guide. And since books, unlike sites, aren’t necessarily written to be sold - or at least sold via search - this does call into question the profil motive for publishers.
The other interesting thing is the contextual ads that Google is selling on the results pages. A sensible idea. But for who? Not exactly clear to me, yet, but it would seem that if you are anyone - not just a publisher - you might want to advertise on these pages. But it doesn’t appear that existing Adwords customers have their ads served up on this new area, even if you type the same keywords. Does this mean Google is selling keywords more than once on different parts of the site? This clearly bears more investigation….
But that said, we will say that the service does appear to have more immediate commercial potential than either SIPs or the tag-cloud like attributes that Amazon is featuring as part of their effort to let people peer inside books (see our post on this). Stay tuned for further thoughts.
JF
