Google TV and How it May Affect SEO

Sara Beaudoin is the Marketing Communications Manager for SearchPro Systems.

Google has now released Google TV, which will likely be the next wave of the technological future, and which will put all of the best TV and internet features at our fingertips through our TVs.  People are more and more frequently watching television online, as being restricted to watching our favorite TV shows at specific times is becoming too difficult.  People enjoy the luxury of watching their favorite shows online at a time that is convenient for them, however, a computer monitor can’t compare to our own home entertainment systems, and therein lies the problem.

Well not anymore!  Google TV allows users to access the internet, their DVRs and TV simultaneously, all on the same screen.  If a user’s favorite show isn’t on at 4 in the afternoon when they want to watch it, they can find it online and watch it through the internet on their TV screen instead.  They can also search for their favorite TV show and set an upcoming listing to record on their DVR.  Not only that, but a user can access any web page while watching TV and not lose sight of either one.  Their TV show will appear in a box in the corner of their TV, while the web page they open will show behind it.  Football fans will be able to pull up stats while watching the game, Jersey Shore fans will be able to pull up the most recent Tweets about The Situation while watching Jersey Shore, and more!  It’s an understatement to say this could become hugely popular.

Therefore, we need to understand how Google TV may affect SEO and VSEO.  Since a standard website will have a very different appearance when viewed on a large TV screen, anyone who wants to have their site published on the Google TV device will need to create a specially designed website for use only on Google TV.  If that doesn’t create enough extra work in itself, SEO may need to be done differently for the website and for the Google TV site.  Furthermore, will Google TV know to pull up the Google TV version of your site when a user is accessing it through their Google TV?  What if you don’t have a Google TV website created yet; will your website show up in a Google search for your site’s keywords when a user searches through their Google TV, or will only Google TV sites be listed?

At this point, there are too many questions and not enough information released by Google to determine exactly how Google TV will affect SEO and VSEO, but we can safely guess that we will need to adapt in order to keep our websites visible and optimized for internet users.