I ran a check and discovered that Google officially first announced its new attempt to evolve and increase the quality of its results on May 16th, 2007 calling it Universal Search.

Reading their press announcement they also claimed Universal Search is based on a “model that will offer users a more integrated and comprehensive way to search for and view information online”.

Explained in simple words Google is trying to provide users what they are looking for not just by focusing on website content but by including results from different data sources that could briefly be summarized in Videos, Maps, Images, Wikipedia, influential blogs (Technorati), and influential libraries (IMDB).

Let’s take a look at one example which shows the results on Google.com for a user searching for “madonna”:

As you can see, Google is aggregating the most relevant results as an attempt to interpret users needs and prioritizing results taking them from established sources that specialize in a specific category.

In my example, Google has already learned that Madonna is a singer and a user searching for a singer is most likely looking for:

1. the official web site
2. biography
3. discography
4. news/gossips
5. video
6. images
7. lyrics

And look at the results:

1st.  madonna.com – the official site

2nd. madonna entry on wikipedia: the most trusted encyclopedia on the web

3rd. madonna entry on imdb: the most trusted movie library on the web – she’s a singer and an actress

4rd. latest article with Madonna’s picture from one of the major newspaper aggregators- news.google.com

5th. Madonna’s MySpace page: including the most relevant info on Madonna from her profile in one of the top 3 social media on the web

6th. Madonna’s Videos on YouTube

7th. Madonna’s songs on LastFM: the most established online radio network

My example could be replicated with any other artists, celebrities, etc…but could be generalized and extended to ANY established brand.

What will change is the library of established sources that Google will refer to. Most of them we already know and can expect to find:

1. Wikipedia
2. YouTube
3. Images.Google.com
4. News.Google.com
5. MySpace
6. FaceBook
7. Linkedin
8. Imdb
9. Technorati
10. Digg

But if Universal Search implies better, more relevant results from established sources, it also opens an opportunity for what I call Universal SEO.

Universal SEO is extending its efforts and attention in seeking 1st Page positioning on Google by working not just on the client’s website but also by establishing, controlling and improving its presence within the pool of sites we know Google treats as priority and preferential sources within its ranks.

One example: whilst Madonna owns her MySpace profile and what Google is displaying is the official Madonna MySpace page, in YouTube the result is “a” video that happens to be tagged as Madonna where I would have expected to find the official Madonna YouTube channel instead.

My article is really to explain how SEO is now a broader area of competency and work that goes well beyond the traditional optimization of a site.

I call this new way of maximizing your site’s visibility and brand across a multitude of social media/blogging/…: Universal SEO.

I’ll be writing more on this topic in the future…