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.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 16th, 2009 at 10:23 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways.