In recent Google news, it was announced that Google will be increasing the information they give you when searching for restaurants. Currently, when searching for a restaurant, Google will provide you with a card on the right of your screen. This shows a map result of the restaurant, business information, and other related restaurants. According to Search Engine Watch, the recent change will add a menu card that will show you menu items and prices of the selected restaurant, all without having to click through the site.

Although I am a foodie, this post isn’t to show how easy it is to find a restaurant on Google. The purpose is to try to forecast Google’s direction in the future. They have been serving up these cards for quite some time now, and every month the cards become more intuitive. Google no longer wants to be a search engine; they want to be a “find engine.”

Google is confident enough in its algorithms that it has minimized the focus on search results; and has started feeding you the exact information you might need. At present time, it can only handle simple things like serving business information and answering questions like “What was Albert Einstein’s birthday?” But it must be remembereed that Google never rolls something out unless they plan to expand on it.

It makes sense, however. Google never truly wanted to be a search engine. They want to be the be-all-end-all information center. It just turns out that search engine was the current best way to become that. The smarter Google gets the more it will move away from traditional search engine tactics, and will do its best to act more like a person.

Now what can this mean?

I promise it’s not the storyline to the Terminator and it’s actually very simple. When you ask a friend for a restaurant recommendation, and then follow up with questions about the price, location, and menu, what can you expect? Do you expect them to tell you what you want to hear; or to tell you 10 related things that might somehow answer what you asked?

Search engines have the contradiction of having the most knowledge ever collected in history; without having the ability to fully serve it up when asked. It’s performance anxiety at the technology level. This is what Google is constantly trying to change.

From an SEO standpoint, this can make things seem gloomy. If Google is just handing you the information, why optimize sites anymore? The answer is quite the contrary. The key is to optimize your site so well that Google trusts your information so it can serve it up to users. With a combination of quality content, traditional SEO tactics, and recent trends such as structured data, you can build a site that is favored by Google.

Takeaways

The biggest takeaway is that an SEO company needs to look at any new SEO tool and find ways to utilize it. Staying ahead of the curve is important for us as SEOs, but also for your site’s performance.