Reading over the latest Business Week article on Google, I pulled out the following quotes, that I thought are interesting.  We’ve been telling clients these things for awhile, but it is always interesting to hear it from the source:

“Google’s computers are constantly running may indicate people aren’t clicking on some results as much or in the same way as they did historically.”

Performance on the Search Engine Result page matters just as much as your appearance there.

“Google is famous for its algorithms and data-driven approach, but the company depends nearly as much on a global network of human evaluators, or “raters.” These part-time contract workers are asked to provide opinions on proposed changes and whether results are more relevant, among other things. Often their opinions carry the day.”

Never create a website just for computers.  Users matter just as much.

“About 10 changes are approved to go live at each Thursday morning launch meeting.”

Google is constantly changing the way the SERP operates — every week.

“So Google has been tweaking algorithms to emphasize the searcher’s apparent location. Now, a search on “bank” on the U.S. site, google.com, will bring up links to Bank of America and Wells Fargo (WFC), while the same search on google.co.in, Google’s Indian site, will bring up homegrown HDFC Bank (HDB) and ICICI Bank (IBN).”

Ranking reports can provide some estimate of where you rank, but increasingly, traffic and Analytics analysis is the best way to determine the effectiveness of your campaign.