What offline signals affect SERPS?

[JaspalX]

A journalist contact of mine was asking whether we were getting close to the point where 'developers' (for which I read Google) can take account of opinions/interests/actions of people who don't use the Internet (the example I was give was 'poor' people and 'rich' people).

This got me thinking about what (if any) offline signals that Google/Bing etc. use as signals for ranking. I understand that some household demographic data may be used for ad targeting (I think I read that Axciom do that) - but are there any others?

[Dan-Petrovic]

None to my knowledge. Wouldn't loading of offline data into algorithm go against Google's whole philosophy?

What an interesting topic!

[dignan99]

If they are not doing it now, they will be soon I am sure.  Why?  Since it would be great for business.

I have little doubt that discount travel companies utilize the offline data to signal what type of deal they may offer your or accept.

Depending on what Zip code you are in, or if you use a regular bank card or Platinum American Express to pay.

This will no doubt translate to individual user results via search engines.

This question also got me thinking about the potential of an "Online ID Card" or license to surf the web.  While I hate the idea, it would lessen the problems for anti-piracy groups and crime (tracing IP's and proving who did what etc), and would be a marketers dream know exactly who was doing what on the internet.

It would certainly ruin much of what makes the internet great, but it would bring some type order to it for government and corporations.

Sorry I mentioned it.

[JaspalX]

@Dejan SEO, not sure if using offline data would go against Google's 'philosphoy'. I guess there are (at least) two categories of 'offline' information that would be relevant: things that are truly offline (for which an entirely new 'parser' would be required) and things that can be imported and correlated with online data.

I think the postcode example is a good one - if I live on a particularly poor neighbourhood and do a search for 'where can I get a good family holiday to suit my budget' or something like that, a 'better' result for me might be different to someone living in an affluent area...and Google does say it wants to give the 'best' or most appropriate answer doesn't it?

How to turn that idea into something actionable for SEO? Well, I'll leave that to someone cleverer than me!

@digna99 no, please online ID cards!?!

[MurdenEnterprise]

That said, isn't it down to travel companies to decide what is the best product for certain budgets? Although the concept is interesting, I can only think that Google places answers the post code question. If it were to go further it would need to obtain personal data about the user entering a search query so It can truly match relevant results and i'm just not sure people would be comfortable with that.

[JaspalX]

That's one of the things I was wondering about Nick - how much other (i.e. non-browsing behaviour type) personal information does Google et al gather?

Another type of information is things like  the UK Companies House maintains information of registered companies (including registered office address etc.) - could that be useful for local ranking? (BTW I'm not sure Companies House info is relevant, but there may be other sources that are).