Christian J. Ward, EVP, Yext
@wardchristianj
State of SearchWhy Location is the New Frontier of Mobile Search
Search 1.0
Keywords
10 Blue links
Intelligent Era
Understanding
Knowledge
The New Age ofExploration is Intelligent
Amazing Experience
Foundational Experience
Structured Data & Content
Unstructured Data & Content
HUMAN CURATION
SEARCH 1.0Classic SEO
LOCALSEO
INTELLIGENT ERA
• We have accepted this Blue Link reality
• With 10 Possibilities, Errors are Expected
• But, honestly, this is sad…
• We have tortured the unstructured data to game the Algo and produce blue links
How We Got Here
• Structured Data leads the way to answers
• Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence leverage this
• The Interface finally begins to return Answers, not blue links, breaking the whole interface paradigm
Where Are We Going?
KNOWLEDGEpowers this
new age of exploration
“We're evolving in computing froma 'mobile-first' to an 'AI-first'
world”Sundar Pinchai, CEO, Google
146%YoY growth in intelligent location
search
T h i n k W i t h G o o g l e , 2 0 1 6
50%Mobile searches that return
maps
S c r e e n w e r k , 2 0 1 2
pizza_
atm_
banks_
insurance_
car battery_
electronics_
doctors_
food_
fish_
wine_
cheese_
beer_
People_Places_
NameAddressReviewsPhone NumberEmailWebsiteDescriptionHours of OperationHoliday HoursPhotosMap Coordinates
LogoPayment MethodsCategoriesEventsPhotosLanguagesCall to ActionYear EstablishedSpecialties
Twitter HandleFacebook Page…
Where does all thisknowledge come from?
Data Ecosystem & Signal to Noise ProcessingData flows as input and output between most location services
• Bad data is a killer to AI and machine learning
• The systems begin to “learn wrong” and can’t easily “un-learn” data
• The once “allowable” bad result out of ten now completely cripples the new Interface
Now What if The Data Is Wrong
Single Sources of Truth
“Alexa, What’s the first rule ofFight Club?”
Only a Single Source Can be Used for This, with Verification.
Classic Algos Struggle with This.
Am I Exaggerating?
Anyone Remember Long Term Capital Management?• “using quantitative models to exploit deviations from
fair value…”
• “finance veterans, PhDs, professors, and two Nobel Prize winners…”
• “LTCM triggered more than $1 Trillion in default risks and lost $4.4B in one year
• One of the single biggest causes of the global, financial meltdown
76% visit a business within one day
Total Location Search users
28% of these searches
result in a purchase
T h i n k W i t h G o o g l e , 2 0 1 6
The New Age of Explorationis constantly changing
Amazon Echo
Intelligent Interfaces & Bots
IBM Watson Microsoft Cortana Siri (Apple)Google
Assistant
WeChat LineFacebook M
Oculus HololensMagic Leap
Virtual/Augmented Reality
Tesla: 2020 Uber/Volvo: 2021 Google: Ride in style
Self-Driving Cars
The New Age of Explorationis Intelligent
David Byrne | Google | LocationWorld
The New Age of Explorationis powered by KNOWLEDGE
Headlines: Mobile First Indexing
“To make our results more useful, we’ve begun experiments to make our index mobile-first. Although our search index will continue to be a single index of websites and apps, our algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from those pages in our results…”
What Are We Searching For?
• Every year, we debate the death of SEO• AI, Machine Learning, Personalization – are all
feeding into the move to Voice & SEO’s demise
This Stuff is Hard: Emotions? Sarcasm?
Three Data Levels
• Grossly Simplified: RAW, STRUCTURED, INSIGHTS
RAW DATA
POINT IN TIMEBUILDING BLOCKS
FREE TEXTSPOKEN
STRUCTURED
IN TIMEDIRECTIONALGROWTH &
DECLINESCHEMA
INSIGHTS
TRIGGERSRELATIONSHIPS
PATTERNSPREDICTION
ANSWERS
Three Data Levels
• Grossly Simplified: RAW, STRUCTURED, INSIGHTS
Stock Price
$58.00 / share
News Stock Overlay
News Triggers High
Stock Chart
$58.00 is a 52wk
High
NEWSAlert
Search Engines Are Evolving
1. Searcher(Human)
2. Search Engine(Machine, mostly)
3. Source(Human, mostly)
Potentialanswers
Link to the Selected Answer
But Really…
ContentBlogsAd copyFeatured articlesWebpagesProduct write-upsMenu blurbsServices Lists
Unstructured…
YUCK!
Tombstone
Movie?City?Headstone?Prospectus?Pizza?Comic Book?
The Googoo Baby is very confused!!!
Why is This Getting More Important?
1. Searcher(Human)
2. Search Engine(Machine, mostly)
3. Source(Human, mostly)
Potentialanswers
Link to the Selected Answer
One Great Answer
Pichai recently noted that Google has been
“laying the foundation for this for many, many years.”
This has led Google to develop an end-to-endsolution that means customers
NEVER HAVE TO OPEN AN APP OR VISIT A
WEBSITE.
What do you see?
Ellen Langer, Mindfulness
By adding the slightest definition, the pattern becomes confident
How Much Proof Do You Need?
- Searchmetrics, 2014
Schema
“Over 10 million sites use Schema.org to markup their pages and email messages.”
Which basically means no one is doing this well.
Really? 10 Million?
We passed One Billion Websites in September of 2014, and its closer to 1.08B today
10,000,000 / 1,080,000,000 = .926%
Nice work, everyone!< 1%
There’s a Good Reason for This
EXHAUSTING
Schema Example: RestaurantGreatFood4 stars - based on 250 reviews1 Madison Ave New York, NY 10010
Latitude: 40 deg 44 min 54.36 sec N Longitude: 73 deg 59 min 8.5 sec W
(408) 714-1489www.greatfood.com
Hours: Mon-Thu 5pm - 9:30pmFri-Sat 5pm - 10:00pm
Categories: Middle Eastern, Mediterranean
Price Range: $$
Takes Reservations: Yes
Back to Tombstone
Q: “Alexa, What is a Tombstone?”A: “A headstone or gravestone placed over a grave.”Q: “Alexa, Is Tombstone a movie?”A: “No, a gravestone is not a film.”Q: “Alexa, is there a movie called Tombstone?”A: “Yes, there is a film called Tombstone.”Q: “Alexa, can you order me a Tombstone pizza?”A: “I didn’t see that in your past orders, so I added a Tombstone pizza to your shopping list.”
100+Location Data
Fields
NameAddress 1 & 2SublocalityDisplay AddressAddress VisibleCityStatePostal CodeCountryMain PhoneCategoriesLatitudeLongitudeClosed FlagSpecial OfferSpecial Offer URLBusiness HoursHoliday Hours
DescriptionWebsiteWebsite Display URLEmailsPayment MethodsLogoPhotosYouTube Video URLsMenuProductsEvents
BiosAdditional Hours TextAdditional URLsAlternate PhoneMobile PhoneFaxToll-Free NumberTwitter Handle
Facebook PageYear EstablishedAssociationsSpecialtiesBrandsLanguagesKeywordsAttribution Logo/URL
This Isn’t Easy, But It’s Critical
YOU must controlthe knowledge about
your business(or your client’s business)
@wardchristianj
Thank You!