Google Alphabet: Will it Affect Your SEO?

Google has been providing us with plenty to talk about lately - last week we discussed the changes to Google+; this week we’re going to touch on Google’s announcement that it is forming an umbrella company known as Alphabet.

<figcaption id="caption-attachment-3549" class="wp-caption-text">I wonder how many stock photos of alphabet magnets have been downloaded over the past ten days?</figcaption></figure>

Let me get this part out of the way in case you’ve got a bagel in the toaster and don’t want to spend a lot of time reading this whole post: this change is highly unlikely to have any effect on your SEO or your use of Google services, not for the foreseeable future and possibly not ever. Of course Google is constantly changing, and this isn’t to say that the state of SEO and Google’s services will remain static - that’s never the case. Google’s move to form Alphabet, though, is unlikely to have any direct effect on how the products and services that remain under the Google brand will operate. Unless you’re an investor, you can probably go about your day without worrying about it any further.

So what is the deal with Alphabet?

Simply put, the core internet services that most people think of as “Google” as well as services associated with the Android mobile platform will remain under the Google division of Alphabet. Google’s search engine, Gmail, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Plus, YouTube and all of the many other services you access using your Google account will be staying right where they are.

The business strategies behind Alphabet’s formation are surely many and varied, though as per usual Google’s own explanations have been on the vague side. Of course, plenty of speculation and commentary have arisen out of this change - you don’t have to poke around much to find a myriad of opinions about the change, what its ramifications will be and whether it will be a success.

So what will the other divisions of Alphabet be doing? It may be easier to ask what won’t they be doing.This BBC article about what Alphabet does has a pretty thorough rundown - to name just a few items, Alphabet will be working on driverless cars, investment ventures, smart homeware, research to slow aging and robots. </p>

Is Google finally turning the corner towards becoming Skynet? That question is another that has merited plenty of opinions on the internet - if your interest is piqued, trust me, you'll find some fun articles and infographics on the topic. I'll leave the dystopian future speculation for another time, though (that kind of thing is best discussed over an adult beverage, don't you agree?) - for now, just be assured that your SEO isn't going to suffer as a result of this change. And should Google actually become Skynet, well then, SEO will be the least of your worries!