Google Rules, Directories Drool

The title of this post is also the title of my presentation at ICC on Monday. Poking a stick at the directories, wasn't I?

Thankfully, I don't have to try to remember what I said during my 'sanity check' presentation. My blogosphere buddy (and now in person) David Shaw does a great job finding the high points: "My summary: For Dave, Google is outperforming industry-specific directories dramatically, not only in clickthroughs, but in quality of search results. And that's a serious problem for any b2b publisher. Some more key takeaways..."

Dave laments the small audience I drew (speaking opposite Sherpa Anne Holland), but the feedback I have gotten back says I delivered the goods, which is satisfying enough. And talking to Pat and others afterwords says I had the right audience.

John Blossom has detailed slide-by-slide notes, as I noted yesterday. If any regular readers want to see the presentation, drop me an email. Because it has some real traffic numbers, I don't want to publish it here. But I can post the core of the presentation, which justifies my title (besides the traffic numbers):

What's Wrong with directories:

• We are sold on clicks and category rankings
• Users judge (directory) sites on relevant results

• We assume you have an unique audience
• You focus on skimming Google to boost traffic

• We (advertisers & directories) want to use categories
  
• Users are used to using search

Hence: Google rules:

• It ranks based on relevance
• Traffic is not contrived
• Uses search to drill down

Go ahead and argue with that! But its easy to be the critic. The directories have the really hard work of finding solutions to these issues--I'll be watching.