This is really where personalization comes in. Think about wikis, blogs, and that kind of thing. This is where the bulk of web content lives. I do a search because I’m looking for content that matches my need. And this is where personalized search matters, because I want to find something I care about.

But the personalization isn’t just about the word I typed in. It pulls in the entire context of the user. The search isn’t simply based on a keyword—it’s based on my history, what I’ve looked at before, what I’ve interacted with, all of that.

So what does that mean for us? It means we have to make sure that the webpage we produce—the content itself—is structured in a way that allows search engines to figure out what the page is really about.

This is where we talk about search engine optimization. We care about optimizing access to that specific page, not the front door. We don’t need a front door. Nobody cares about a front door.

If you’re looking something up on Wikipedia, do you go to Wikipedia first and then search from there? Or do you just type what you want directly into a search engine and go straight to the page? You go straight to the page.

That’s how people use the web now. So let’s stop pretending it’s 10 years ago.

Users go directly to the content page.