Programming Search Engines

Obituary: Google Search API

2009-03-07T15:52:00.000-08:00

Google Search API
Born: April 29, 2002
Retired (depricated): December 16, 2006
Death: August 31, 2009

Survived by AJAX Search API.
In attendance will be Yahoo! Search Web Services, Yahoo Search BOSS, and Live Search API.

For several years, we've been happily using Google Search API to track search results and get well structured web information. Google stopped issuing access to this API in 2006 and while our applications were grand-fathered in, the GS-API was treated like an old version of Windows 98. GS-API allowed us to obtain a lot of information that would otherwise be very time consuming to get. But now, that party is officially ending:

From: Google Developer Team [mailto:soap-notification@google.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 11:23 AM
To: XXXXX@XXXXX.com
Subject: Changes to the SOAP API product

Hello,

My name is Adam XXXXX, and I'm a product manager at Google. I see that you signed up for a key for the Google SOAP Search API some time ago and that you have an application still making use of that key.

As you may know, the SOAP Search API was deprecated in 2006 and we're now planning to end support for it as of August 31st, 2009. It has been steadily declining in usage over the last couple years and we believe that the majority of the use cases are sufficiently handled by the AJAX Search API. Please refer to the AJAX API documentation and Terms of Use for more details.

Our recent blog post has more information:
http://googleajaxsearchapi.blogspot.com/2009/03/google-code-labs-and-soap-search-api.html

I'm sorry for the inconvenience this is sure to cause you, and I hope that inconvenience isn't too great. Please use this discussion group if you have questions about migrating to the AJAX Search API:
http://groups.google.com/group/google-ajax-search-api

Thanks,

Adam XXXXX
Product Manager
Google Developer Team

Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to the Google SOAP Search API.

Bye-bye Google API. Well miss you.

Dynamic Websites - Promote a Single Permalink URL

2009-02-20T09:10:00.001-08:00

Website may allow for multiple URLs to retrieve the exact same content. A common example is:
http://www.localsplash.com/local-seo-services

Which might also be found as:
http://www.localsplash.com/local-seo-services?utm_source=djrblog-sl&utm_medium=pfi&utm_campaign=dir
http://www.localsplash.com/local-seo-services?sort=name

Notice that the only difference between the above URLs is the addition of website traffic tracking parameters and sorting parameters. There are also more complicated examples such as sub-folders and alternative page extensions.

These duplicate URLs, if indexed by the search engines, will dilute the ranking value of your website pages. To prevent multiple versions of the same page from being separately indexed; the big 3 search engines now support a header link to reference the primary URL:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.localsplash.com/local-seo-services"/>

Search engines and their crawlers will interpret that directive in allowing the primary page to take precedence as well they will likely attribute page ranking factors to the appropriate page.

This should be applied to all dynamic pages (ASP, PHP, etc) as a
general publishing practice since most of these pages commonly support query string parameters for sorting and tracking and 301 redirecting usually isn’t practical.

For more information see:
Google - Specify your canonical
Yahoo - Fighting Duplication: Adding more arrows to your quiver
Microsoft - Partnering to help solve duplicate content issues
http://searchengineland.com/canonical-tag-16537 - Google, Yahoo, Microsoft unite…

David Rodecker
Founder & CTO
RelevantAds
getting local business online

Google: Everything is Local Search

2008-07-10T01:39:00.000-07:00

In a major advancement to embrace local business information, Googles search engine is starting to consider all searches as local oriented. Historically, the search results would respond with local business data only when the query explicitly contained geographical terms such as a city name or zip code. This improvement now allows for any basic search term to trigger the top 10 pack of local business results.

Queries such as Dentist (image) or Plumber (image) now display local business listings among the traditional web page results. The functionality is driven based upon what the user has provided as their default location in the Google Maps. The top 10 pack seem to always rank in 4^th position, which incidentally is the same position for subscribed links.

Activating Local Search in Google

To activate this feature, users can lookup their location in Google Maps and then specify that as their default location. (Example specifying location as 92708). Subsequent searches done on Google will show the local top 10 if the query is relevant to business listings, such as Chiropactor search. The default location setting can easily be changed (or even removed for those who are privacy insecure) at a later point from within the search results by selecting “change location”.

Local = Search

This functionality isn’t new. In fact, similar location profiling and caching techniques have been done at search engines such as the one we developed at Local.com. The fact that Google has incorporated this logic into its universal search algorithm is indicative of the overwhelming user desire to obtain local search results as well as the pervasive nature of local business listings, or in other words: “Everything is local and local is everything”.

David Rodecker
Founder & CTO,
RelevantAds
“getting local business online"

Google Business Listing Loose Search Optimization

2008-05-07T21:36:00.000-07:00

Google Local underwent a few modifications in the last week. There are some notable changes that impact SEO and internationalization.

Tracking URL -
Business listing have a primary URL that is shown and linked from the business profile page. The website link used to directly refer to the URL, which produces a link value. A change was done such that the link is now points to a tracking URL and then redirected to the destination website. So instead of going directly to http://relevantads.com, the users browser will first hit Googles tracking URL and then be redirected to the RelevantAds site.

Google's motivation is probably not to stifle SEO link value; but to track user activity. When a user clicks on the tracked link, it provides Google a lot of information such as the search query, business listing, coordinates, type of link that was clicked and other encoding facets.

USA Joins Google Maps Globally
Business listings now are added with a county code prefix. For US listings this means that a "1" is prefix to the added to listing if it doesn't already exist. This is apparent from within the GLBC.
While this seems like a trivial change, it allows Google Maps to be consolidated to a single global index rather than several country segments. And a consolidated index is a faster, more stable and more rapidly updated all of which we've seen in Google Maps over the past few months.

David Rodecker
President, RelevantAds
“getting local business online"

Google Local now with YouTube Video

2008-03-19T16:52:00.001-07:00

Google Local silently launched a new feature today in providing a way for businesses to integrate video with their local business profiles.

This makes Google the only top-tier search engine to allow businesses to integrate video in their local business listings. While several 2nd tier local search destinations, such as SuperPages and CitySearch have provided video production and publication for some time; Google Local is focused on giving control to integrate the existing videos. This is similar to RelevantAds business profile. Because RelevantAds also syndicates business listings, videos will now be distributed to Google Local Business Profiles (announcement to follow).

The Google Local Businesses profile page allows for up to 5 YouTube videos to be integrated with the listing. Each video is verified and content approved (presumable to not allow banned or adult content) and retreivd from YouTube along with its title.

Perhaps the more impressive change with Google Local is that the video is shown on Google Local Business Profile within minutes. Previously, it would take several weeks for the Google Local index to be updated with any content changes.

Yahoo Local Enhanced Business Profile, which is a premium product, doesn't even allow for video integration. I would expect to see that upgrade in the months to come.

Google Local Drops Fixed Classification of Businesses

2008-03-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

Today, Google Local has changed the way that local businesses are classified. The new method is a free-form text field that dynamically offers recommendations as well as allowing for a custom value to be entered.

This is a big change compared to the prior way that Google local categorized businesses, which was based upon a proprietary list of about 500 categories (12 top level and 500 sub-classification). The newly recommended choices are inclusive of the legacy list, but provide greater granularity in product and services classification.

Google Local search uses categories in two ways:
1) The category will be displayed under a business listing
2) A category can be explicitly searched such as
category: Attorneys Adoption, Divorce & Family Law

It will be interesting to see how this will impact Google Local search results. One major implication is keywords could effectively be given as categories, but that could change going forward. Based upon our historical analysis, a businesses category hasn't been shown to greatly impact the ranking of search results on Google Local as it does with Yahoo Local and many other search engines.

One call to action sure: if you already had your business in Google Local, it might be worthwhile to review or update the category classification.

David Rodecker
President, RelevantAds
“getting local business online"

Search Results: Accelerated vs. Standard ad delivery

2008-02-20T08:36:00.000-08:00

There are several advanced targeting options when configuring listings on Google adwords . These optimizations affect where and when ad groups are triggered. One commonly overlooked setting is the Delivery method.

Delivery method has 2 settings: Standard and Accelerated.
Google describes these as:

Standard: Show ads evenly over time. Standard delivery distributes your budget throughout the day to avoid reaching your budget early on. Your ads will show periodically throughout the day.
Accelerated: Show ads as quickly as possible. Accelerated delivery displays your ads as often as possible until your daily budget is met.

Accelerated Difference
Google touts that the main difference is that the advertiser is more likely to spend their ad budget. The functional difference is that once Google has shown a sponsored listing it will tend to not show it again to the same users. This comes into effect when a user performs another query or refreshes the page.

Why go accelerated? Usually this is necessary for a psychological affirmation. Businesses need to see their own ad listings in order to believe that their ads are working. The accelerated setting accomplishes this goal by repeatedly showing ads even when the user has already seen them. Another justification is for brand advertising when it is crucial to ensure that a brand name is placed in all relevant areas.

With Standard ad delivery; a sponsored listing may likely not be displayed upon clicking refresh.

Marketing Comparison
However more detailed analysis gives light as to the expectation of differences. Here are two identical campaigns with the exact same settings, ads, keywords and values that were run during the same time period (approximately one month). Here are the statistics:

	Max CPC	Clicks	Impressions	CTR	Average CPC	Total Spend	Position
Accelerated	$2.00	395	24,598	1.60%	$0.95	$374.20	5.6
Standard	$2.00	414	13,426	3.08%	$0.90	$371.56	4.9

Accelerated ads are shown much more often, and shown multiple times to the same users. The click-through-rate is decreased and as a result Google is penalizing this campaigns' ads. The keyword quality score is shown to be the same across both campaigns, however we experience a 5% higher average-cost-per click with a lower average position.

Bottom Line
The benefit of an accelerated campaign is that your listings are more likely to be shown; however it will come at an increased cost and lower average ranking. Unless you have a compelling reason to display your ads, even when a user has already seen it, this setting should be set to Standard. Brand name advertisers can justify the added expense and exposure.

David Rodecker
President, RelevantAds
“getting local business online"

Following Google Local

2007-11-30T01:13:00.000-08:00

The Google Maps API team has opened up their files. Depending on where you are looking on Google Maps you will have different functionality and information. For example, in India, you'll get geographic titles and business listings on the map, but there are no driving directions.

See the Google speadsheet for more information. According to the spreadsheet, there are 18 counties that support business listings. Thanks to Pamela Fox, now we know where our the Google coattails can drive local business...

identifies the major geographies and major types of information including geographic titles,

OpenSocial - Has Two Uses

2007-11-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

Googles launched OpenSocial this week. OpenSocial is a content sharing standard that allows two primary capabilities:

3rd Party Embedded Content
Popular websites like LinkedIn and MySpace were previously limited to what their technology teams could create. With OpenSocial, these site no longer have to develop all the information tools on their site. By embracing the standard, popular websites can allow for any web information tools to be added to their site; some examples have already been created such as calendar sharing, event organization and music listening.

Content Syndication Standard
The corollary to 3rd party content integration is that OpenSocial allows for websites to re-published their content and information tools. OpenSocial boasts 250MM users through its current partners, while that is a great jumpstart, the effect of a content sharing standard is far reaching and has substantial long-term implications. By embracing the syndication standard, however, you have in effect limited the possible growth of your own website (see the end of new social neworks).

Easy Use and Implementation
Behind the scenes the coding for either use is simple. It is basic HTML and Javascript encapsulated in an XML file, so all the cool AJAX and web features are available. Unfortunately, compiled code libraries such as .Net won't work out of the box. See sample OpenSocial code.

While OpenSocial will commoditize the social networks, we still embrace how Google gives away the number one position.

Trump Advertises for Competitor - "Your Fired"

2007-10-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

In search marketing, you usually don't want competition. However Madza was more than happy to take the opportunity to show everyone the advantages of the MX-5 Miata over the Solstice; especially when Donald Trump is behind it!

Pontiac created a large marketing stunt sponsoring The Apprentice show. The car was the center of attention in the show and to find out more Trump asked guided viewers to simply perform a Yahoo! search for "apprentice car".

Incidentally our partner manages the marketing campaigns for Madza USA. They we're able to immediately added that keyword to the search campaign and wa-lah, nstant traffic! Thanks Donald!

Result: On the top of Google and Yahoo! for "apprentice car" was Mazda's ad showing the advantages of their car versus the Pontiac. After having spent millions to sponsor the Apprentice, failed to spend enough to lock in the top position for "apprentice car" allowing Mazda to get all the traffic.

Googling Over Yelp

2007-09-10T23:31:00.000-07:00

This piece is a continuation of the Search for Google returns Yahoo story six weeks ago.

I've been asked if Google has corrected the potentially embarrassing error in their local search results. Well, the Yahoo company address doesn't show up, however a couple of other, seemingly random listings do instead (Eastridge Mall, and Fresca).

Googles phone number returns a different business.

These new results are businesses that we're reviewed by Yelpers who also reviewed Google Inc. Confusing? Let me clarify:

Google Inc is a registered business on Yelp with several reviews from other Yelpers,
Yelpers review other businesses, providing lots of great content (Google Maps loves it too),
All reviews are on one page; along with each respective business identification (name, address and phone)
Entire web page is associated to a single business entity in the Google Maps database,
Even though the phone number (650) 318-0200 is owned by Google Inc., it is actually not associated with any registered business in Google Maps or any other info databases! (yes, irony).
A different company is now fingered as being a relevant result for this query.

Upon deeper investigation, an interested local-SEO points was identified:
Single Business to Web Page Association. This is an common assumption to local search engines; associate a webpage (or domain) to a single business location; however Yelp proves the point here. There are several business listings shown on the Yelper review page; however it all only helps a single business listing. Even when another business with accurate information is found, that webpage is NOT being associated to it. That means all the content on this whole site is only benefiting one company. Even more interesting is that this applied to businesses listed above and below the business. (which is the case for the Google phone number too).

Point 3 is the most crucial for local SEO. Implication here is that a Yelper profile can only help to optimize a single business on Google Maps. This means that a business won't really get a benefit from a big-time reviewer. Unless your luck like Fresca, being SEO'd with every listing here; you're better off getting more reviews from smaller people than one review . The bottom line is that Yelp is more a benefit to users than it is to businesses (which I think Yelp would agree), but interesting to see how Google effectively decided that too.

Anyway, I wonder how long it will be until Google fixes their own business listing. Maybe we should offer Google Inc. the RelevantYellow placement verification service to cure the issue!

About the Author
David Rodecker is President of RelevantAds, a service that gets local businesses online through local search.

Search for Google returns Yahoo!

2007-07-31T13:46:00.000-07:00

I consistently preach that it is crucial for businesses to ensure that their identity is protected and highlighted online. When users search for business products, services and contact information, they better be able to find you instead of your competitor.

I came across an ironic competitor search result today when using Google Maps. A search for Googles business location actually returned Yahoos!

Search result on Google Maps.

You'll notice that I queried using their phone number (650) 318-0200 (number source explained below). This is a technical contact number, not the companies primary number, as a result they don't have it associated with their primary business location information. Nevertheless, it certainly isn't Yahoo, their major competitor!

Cause/Solution
This is a case of an contextual misidentification. The web page at CountryPlans.com has address information of the Yahoo office, but also shows the Google contact phone number. The query for the phone number is contextually found in the web page which is associated with Yahoos business location.

Local search has many levels of algorithms, contextual relevancy on top of structured data
and unstructured information. Most of the unstructured data comes from web sites and webpages. Some webpages are included in local search when they can be associated with a business name, phone number, address. All the content on the page is then indexed for search, but with a lower relevancy confidence as compared to a structured data match.

Google can easily solve this problem by associating this secondary phone number with Googles' business listing.

By the way, in case you're wondering where I got this internal phone number for Google, it is listed on Yelp.

Google on Yelp.

About the Author
David Rodecker is President of RelevantAds, a service that gets local businesses online through local search.

Why Local Search Can't Be Standardized

2007-06-09T22:48:00.000-07:00

Search engines operate differently, it's what makes them distinctive. They provide different information, organize data in unique ways, and rank results differently. Local search is no different, however local data is much hard to come by. The majority of US business are not represented accurately online. The problem is lack of verified business data.

Most of the popular local search destinations and search engines allow business owner to freely submit their information; however very few businesses take up on the offer. Either because off lack of knowledge, but also because there are many destinations such as Google, SuperPages, Yahoo, etc. Submitting to one has limited benefit in the overall marketplace. It has prompted some to call for standardizing local search data.

Technology standards are a great. RFC 822, for example, provides for the standard in transmission of email. A business information standard might allow for a business owner to submit and see their accurate information and special deals spread across the internet. And although users and businesses owners would love to see it, it’s not likely to ever happen. Unlike email, this proposal won’t get the support of service providers and users alike; largely because it doesn't make business sense. Destinations thrive on their differentiation as I wrote local business is different everywhere. Beyond the lack of a business case, there are substantial technical issues:

Data fields. Where do we start? I'm working of the premise that businesses want more than a name and address; after all that information already exists in domain records (whois) and hCard is already a standard. RelevantYellow supports over 3 dozen structured data fields to uniquely define a business; while most business won’t require that many we should they should at least specify Category and coverage area.

Category. Practically every provider has a different business category ontology. The U.S. Government has defined and re-defined business category several times; making it difficult for data providers to latch on to, especially since new types of businesses are evolving each year.

Coverage Area. A business may be located in Fountain Valley, CA, however its customer base may be limited to a few city blocks, the county, metropolitan, state, nationwide, or worldwide. This information is currently not well defined, used or verified. However, this is the primary how search engines charge for advertising. Ideally, however, consumers should be presented with businesses that truly service their area, not the highest paying advertiser.

Type of exchange

Email standards were popularized not because of centralizing message formats, but because it allows for the transmission and syndication of content. Can business information be that clearly distributed and trusted? Most internet directories are relevant to a specific region or category. An open standard would open the door for spam where we could see a Miami florists ending up in a California lawyer directory.

Summary:

Content sharing is popular with the person producing content and users; but just as news agencies and video websites act in silos, we are not likely to see local destinations supporting a content syndication standard.

Pasternack: SEO is brain surgery

2007-02-19T12:27:00.001-08:00

This is in response to Dave Pasternacks assertion that "SEO is not rocket science". Dave has created quite the stir in the SEO community which I don't find as well deserved. See my article "What's wrong with Dave Pasternack".

I don't think that Dave Pasternack is really saying that much. As Matt Cutts points out, anything is rocket science until its understood. Since the Google search engine isn't open source, it is not fully understood by outsiders and thereby rocket science. However our society mastered rockets 50 years ago; my college calculus teacher has some great stories of what and how they learned. Even nowadays, even my 10 year old nephew can build and launch a model rocket. Rocket science isn't the right word any longer.

Most web publishers merely submit our content online and just witness what happens in the search results. Blackhats will go the extra mile in an attempt to reprogram the search engine and get it to do something it wouldn't normally do.

So for the Blackhat, SEO is Brain Surgery

SEARCH ENGINE = BRAIN
Programmers = DNA or the brain builders
Manipulating that brain to do something it wouldn't normally do requires brain surgery.

Blackhats could probably never qualify as certified brain surgeons. Not to mention that their patient (Google, et al.) is not inviting the operation. So perhaps the scenario is more like being tied down with your skull cracked open by a voodoo witch doctor.

By the same reasoning, Gray-hats are at least guilty of brainwashing.

Last Note: Pasternack may be a Gray/Black Hat?
As we pointed in our Dave Pasternack contest page, there are 4 distinct pages on the net that Did-It has published about Dave Pasternack. Why in the world is this? He probably does not understand or posses the capability to safely redirect without loosing Page Rank. Furthermore, his company website has duplicate versions on two domains: didit.com and did-it.com.

Three types of SEO, Three SEO Persons

2007-02-19T11:41:00.000-08:00

I've been asked a lot about SEO. There is quite a diversity in what this term and practice means. SEO is often considered the art and science of publishing your website, but in fact it has broader extensions. Also, the practice of SEO can be good, bad and outright nasty.

Three types of SEO:
I) Website Principles. This is often this is performed by a web designed. The purpose is to get your web pages constructed in a way that search crawlers can digest. Google has published basic guidelines on this.

II) Information Organization. A good website will contain a lot of valuable information organized in a natural way. The point is to create a simple pathway to expose your sites information. Many, if not most, websites fail here by either being too flat, with 1,000's of choices on one page, or too deep requiring several clicks to get where you want to be.

III) Data Publishing. Going beneath your webpages, most websites have a database. The powerful search engines really want that data and your webpages are mearly the way that you've exposed that information. There are many ways in which the search giants are taking data these days. Learn more at Programming Search Engines. themselves, there are more There are more ways to give information to search engines than you might realize.

The bulk of SEO practice I, basic principles and then they over-publish that with link-exchanges and the like.

Three SEO Players:
I) Web Designer. This is your traditional web designer who knows how to construct your webpages, create site maps and the overall principles to getting a website included by the search engines.

II) Publishers and Social Fiends. These persons find means of creating buzz towards your website. They know that the more inbound links, the better. They probably have several blogs and affiliations by which they will refer links to your site.

III) Information Architect. This is an individual which can look at the data your site has and find multiple ways of parsing it. They will construct an organized tree like structure to navigate your site. They recognize that search engines also apply data structuring techniques and may find ways of publishing raw data through means other than HTML web pages (as is often talked about in this blog).

Three Psychologies of SEO:
I) White Hat. This is a true, and ethical approach. White Hat's won't over-publish or misrepresent their websites or information.

II) Black Hat. A Black technique is one which is not likely to be invited by the search engines. There are many ways to go about this, but they are all considered wrong in the eyes of the search engine and likely the general user audience. In its worst form, this is considered webspam (as coined by Matt Cutts who heads up the webspam team at Google).

III) Gray Hat. Somewhere between the lines. It might be invited in the eyes of the search user, however it is a question, competitive technique. Since there are few official rules of engagement, many black-hats would consider their strategies to be gray.

It is known that Google will ban sites practicing some black-hat techniques. It is also believed that being associated with these sites could reduce your sites value

Adword Blocks Migration To Yahoo

2007-01-26T15:38:00.000-08:00

The feature which allowed Adwords campaigns to quickly be converted into Yahoo campaigns has been removed. Bulksheet download allows clients to retrieve detailed settings on the configuration of ads, keywords and campaign configurations. Advertising agencies had grown accustomed to using the Bulksheet files and will have to change. Yahoo, themselves, openly support and instructed clients to import Adwords files.

Search Agencies and Advertisers relied on the feature to synchronize their search campaigns. Steve Wiideman, a search marketing expert in OC, told me that he's used the feature to manage campaigns for his clients for some time. “I was surprised that Google even allowed this loophole,” In fact, Steve was trained by Yahoo to use the Google export.

Oversight Until Now?
Steve and others are convinced that Google conscientiously removed the feature to stifle their competition. “I used to convert my 30,000 Google AdWords ads into Yahoo ads. But not anymore!”
But was it intentional? An why was it only changed now if the practice has existed for some time. Google hasn’t publicly announced the minor change and I’ve asked them for clarification on the basis of the change.

Google Upsetting Their Users
I would be moderately surprised if the change was directed at Yahoo since it affects users. Besides the Yahoo ad integration; the export is also used by 3^rd party analysis tools and custom reporting. While the change might be a good business decision for AdWords, it does go against the Google’s stature of ethics. The export was simply allowing access to your own data. As Steve pointed out, “It's a move that will likely affect the larger advertisers, making it difficult to synchronize settings across the two search engines”.

In the past, Google has been extremely open with it’s users and clients.
The search engine opened the doors last year by giving away #1 Google search result for free to the social community of Google users. The integration of Google Base with AdWords has allowed RelevantYellow to extend even more local business data more content to AdWords and search.

Mission Control
Google mission is to collect and organize the Worlds information. Their algorithm specializes in delivering the right, relevant information.
Is this an early sign that Google will take ownership of your data?

Google gives away the number one position

2006-06-23T01:56:00.000-07:00

Google Co-op gives away the highest PPC listing for free. Advertisers pay several dollars for that top placement, but now the subscribed links program allows users to publish anything they want regardless of the search query. Is the search giant crazy, or do they have a winning strategy?

read more | digg story

Google Co-op, Subscribed Links and Topics

2006-05-11T02:43:00.000-07:00

Google Co-op was released on Wednesday. The application had been speculated for weeks after the domain SubscribedLinks was purchased by the Search giant.
The announcement was made to a new tool to a group of select reporters on Wednesday and opened on the web shortly thereafter.
Co-op, consists of Topics and Subscribed Links. Topics provides a way for users to label websites, sets of website or whole domains. Subscribed Links allows users to customize the search results, specifically the first listing.

While its cool to see the results. It is lacking in ways. For starters, it takes some XML programming to make it work, which will surely limit its growth, however knowing Google and the web developing community, a simple user interface is sure to come along. But you don't have to be a developer to get these benefits, instead simply subscribe to other users subscribed links to get the benefit of someone elses work. The social networking for the ultimate techy; subscribe to my search algorithm! A second major flaw is that it isn't much for sharing or social networking. In fact, the only way to view other users is through an example user, Tania Bedrax-Weiss, who I presume is real. It seems that everyone is stemming from her. Perhaps she is the equivalent of "Tom" of mySpace.

Co-op does several things for Google:
Wider content. Organizations can more easily extend their search directly into Google.
Broadens algorithm. User community contributes to the intelligence of the search results.
Content Classification. The contributing user community is now working for Google to classify the web.
Encourages User Referral. Subscribed Links is likely to have a viral affect. After developing Subscribed Links, users will refer others to subscribe them.
Strategic Partnerships. There are currently about 20 Google recommended Subscribed Links providers which anyone can subscribe to. While Google likely didn't charge these companies, their arrangement certainly bolsters Google's credibility.

Abuse in the wings
Quality. One of my immediate concerns after subscribing to someone else was quality. What if that person decides to modify their algorithm in a bad way. Then I'll be stuck with their poor result. Fortunately Edit/Remove is explicity shown, but how many users might just accept and move on. Google reputation may be on the line if left unchecked.
FraudA much bigger and more real concern is abuse for monetary gain. Just as Click Fraud entered the PPC game, I predict Subscribed Links will be abused. The fact that they are giving up slot #1 to Subscribed Links is huge value. AdWords Advertisers pay several dollars for that spot, which is now effectively free. Subscription programs and Spyware are likely on the radar once this catches on.
The Term of Service are very loose in my opinion. It's effectively: Don't link to porn or Spyware. However as with most TOS, it leaves the door open for anything else they think about later, which I believe will be the case.

Competition
This announcement is probably in response to Yahoo's recent acquisition of del.icio.us, the webpage tagging and sharing application. However Google must get the user interface up to par, or even started to really compete with that service. They acquired the domain SubscribedLinks.com just weeks ago on April, 17, and arranged this announcement, the amount of time they spent developing this couldn't have been more than a few months.
Customizing search results through filtering and various means has been attempted, but largely not been successful. However bringing the user community in to extend and customize your search algorithms is quite bold and unlikely to be matched any time soon even if they wanted to offer it.