In a swift and quiet move Google has acquired Post Rank and moved their extremely talented team into Google’s Mountain View California Offices. As details of the acquisition have been kept quite online forums are currently overflowing with conspiracy theories and reasons for the purchase (like with all of Google’s past acquisitions).
What Is Post Rank?
Before investigating Google’s reasons for acquiring Post Rank let’s first address what Post Rank is. Post Rank is essentially a service, which measures user engagement with topics, brands, authors and content across social sites. It provides analytical data which advertisers use to measure the possible effect of advertising on a site or within content.
Why Did Google Acquire Post Rank?
Unfortunately at the moment, only Google and Post Rank know why the acquisition was made but there have been a few educated guesses made online:
Answer 1: Threat Elimination
It’s possible that Google saw Post Rank as a threat to their search business and rather than allowing that threat to grow they took out the competition before it was too late.
Answer 2: Talent Investment
The teams working at Post Rank are reported to be quite talented and would make a great addition to the Google team. By acquiring the company they acquire the team and the talent to help grow Google.
Answer 3: The Data Conspiracy (My Personal Favorite)
As we all know Google is slowly acquiring every source, which tracks data over the internet so they can become the largest data storage and analysis company. By doing this they can then use this data to take a superior marketing and income producing position in the market place. Data is a big key to Google’s current and on-going success.
Answer 4: Display Advertising
The data contained in Post Rank could identify potential target sites for Google to recruit into their Adsense program and extend their PPC and Display Advertising market reach.
Answer 5: Analytics Data
The final answer seems to be the one, which makes most sense, and the answer is that Post Rank data will be integrated into Analytics expanding the appeal of Analytics to webmasters.
Whenever Google makes an acquisition or releases a new update commentators and conspiracy theorists generally come out with their own reasoning as Google rarely provides detailed comments on the acquisition or release. As it stands right now the exact reason for the Post Rank acquisition is unknown and any of the 5 answers above could be justification for the investment.
Like most things acquire Google, we are just going to have to sit back and wait for a new update or announcement to see how Post Rank is affecting Google. One thing to note though is that Google has just acquired a team of very talented programmers with strong social experience. This acquisition could be sending a signal to website owners about Google’s future intention for a more socially integrated search result.
Make sure you stay tuned for further updates about the Post Rank acquisition and it’s possible affect on Google Search Results.