I went to Google News this morning and searched for “marketing” to see what current marketing-related news I may have missed over the last few days. The results were fascinating.

The top result was a ClickZ job listing for Director of Search Engine Marketing. Results two, three and nine of the top 10 were PRWeb and Emediawire releases.

Think about that: Two of the top three organic Google News search results, and three of the top 10, were press releases.

But wait, there’s more: Over on Bing, a search for “marketing” finds zero press release results in the top 10. What’s number-one? Wikipedia. That’s the case, too, on Google Caffeine, on which a search for “marketing” also finds a total lack of press release results — and a virtual duplication of the results one finds on Bing.

So let me amend what I said yesterday about Google Caffeine. When I wrote, “I suspect from the marketer’s perspective there’ll be little impact in the grand scheme of things,” I was thinking more about about keyword marketers than anything else. Google gets the vast majority of search traffic, so keyword marketers will still be flocking to Google with their dollars as tactic number-one.

But if Google Caffeine scrubs press release material out of the top 10 search results, then the world of SEO-related PR is going to change significantly. And if Wikipedia entries are given far more weight in results than before, then Wikipedia better brace itself for a tsunami of attempts to game their system.

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re involved in a pro-active online communications outreach program and you’re not looking at developing and issuing your own press release content, you’re missing out on a good tactic … for the moment.

If you haven’t heard about Google Caffeine yet, I suspect you’ll be hearing a lot about it soon. Call it Google 2.0 if you like. Whatever you call it, it’s next-generation Google, and once it’s rolled out in full bloom it’ll probably get more press than the Microhoo! deal and Bing combined, though I suspect from the marketer’s perspective there’ll be little impact in the grand scheme of things: It’s an infrastructure improvement, not a brand-new product. Here’s a great blog post from Vizion Interactive all about Caffeine. (Thanks to Wil Reynolds for the heads up on the Vizion post.)

“Everybody ought to do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.”
—William James

… write up a whole rant about social media and brand voice that grew out of a long conversation with my friend Dave the other day, focusing on the notion that “social media is the public expression of a brand’s personality” and addressing whether and how social media needs to implement or amplify harder-sell dollars-in-the-till tactics and … well, I overslept this morning and I have a busy day ahead, so instead of another social media rant, here’s that video of a monkey washing a cat. It never gets old. Happy Thursday!

ONN reports.