As I reported three years ago, one of Google’s chief competitors has been the beneficiary of its own algorithm. Only this time it is Facebook, and not Yahoo, to receive a vaunted PageRank of 10.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the PageRank concept was integral to the original thesis of Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford. Essentially it rates the billions of pages based on a 0-10 scale regarding the number of inbound citations (or links). So while it is supposedly a play on words for Larry’s last name, the acronym is also conveniently PR (i.e. public relations).

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One of my good friends was browsing through the bestseller list for an audiobook to buy yesterday when she found an author totally against her philosophy ranking at #9. That led her to discount the entire list as “garbage” and untrustworthy.

Are bestseller lists and platinum records obsolete in the Internet age? Does anyone care what is popular now that we have access to the long tail and customization?

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Some people are so adamant about the brands they identify with that their loyalty could almost be called religion. You know the type: when it is all but impossible to counter long-held opinions in a rational discussion, let alone through advertising. They simply won’t believe your side of the story, as voiced so fittingly by Apple in their latest Mac vs PC commercial.

Can companies ever overcome that kind of dogma? Maybe, maybe not. Here are a few tips on how to at least influence brand religion.

1. Be patient. Recognize that you won’t convert anyone overnight. Some auto insiders have been harsh on the new Chevy May the Best Car Win ads, but I think they strike the right chord. Ask people to give you a chance rather than an immediate sale.
    
   
2. Be visual. Show, don’t tell. Sounds great, but how do you do it? I think this is one of the most valuable lessons I learned from my mentor, Mike Levin, in his series of long tail videos.
    
   
3. Be humble. Perhaps the most important thing to remember is not to insult your audience or make outlandish claims. Recognize that there are barriers to overcome. Listen to your customers, like Microsoft did this year in rebounding with their best ad campaign since Windows 95.
    
   
4. Be pervasive, yet subtle. I often compare SEO to public relations; think of it as a soft sell. Ensure you appear at the top of Google, Yahoo, and Bing for the keywords that you know skeptics will research. That gives you the luxury to be more subtle in your marketing message, which can help you slowly win over even the most stubborn people.
    
   
5. Be smart and focus on the right competitor. Even though you can find weaknesses in seemingly impenetrable products, that makes for an uphill battle. Palm and Android are fighting the wrong battle with the iPhone. You can’t beat Apple at being cool. Instead they should be trying to knock off the OTHER major smartphone maker, RIM. It is much easier to target the antequated interface and flimsy trackballs of Blackberry phones rather than attempt to one-up Apple with features like multitasking or better contact management.
    
   
6. Be exclusive if all else fails and expect to pay for the privilege. Millions of people are unhappy with AT&T service, yet put up with it to use the iPhone.

October 7, 2007 and August 25, 2008 are dates that will likely be heralded as landmark achievements in user experience, yet live in infamy for our online independence. That is when Yahoo publicly launched Search Assist and Google Suggest graduated from Labs to the Google homepage. Suddenly search engines began finishing our sentences — or at least our keyword queries.

Web browsers had already begun implementing auto fill features to assist users with entering the same data in forms over and over. And so from a product manager perspective, the auto complete feature applied to a search engine makes complete sense. Indeed, the original Google Suggest remains a very useful research tool and has even been the subject of a few short studies. People don’t always know what they are looking for, and who better to ask for suggestions than like-minded searchers around the world?

It is also in the best interests of search engines to promote this feature heavily. Trim the long tail of queries to get eyeballs all on the same phrases and that will force advertisers to bid higher on a smaller set of keywords. Reduce the number of unique queries being searched upon and you speed up response time.

However, I think it is a mistake to enable it by default for everyone. Why?

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