Not sure that Google is about reputation management, that’s what social media sites are more geared toward. To me the better way to think about Google is in regard to relevance. Relevance is what is constantly evolving at Google.
The Evolution of Relevance
1) Your website ranks simply for the content found on a page. SEOs quickly figure out that stuffing keywords into titles, copy and alts as well as adding repetitive keyword text that is the same color as the background works to get rankings.
2) Google creates an algorithm that uses backlinks as a means for ranking sites. SEOs create link farms, crappy directories, lame links of all sorts to get their sites ranked.
3) Google creates a PageRank system for measuring a page’s authority so that now an authoritative link equals X number of crappy links. SEOs find higher quality websites with equivalent PR to trade links with to help their rankings.
4) Google modifies this approach by placing websites into related neighborhoods. SEOs continue trading links, but only with other websites in their industry for rankings.
5) Google places a higher importance on one-way links. SEOs turn to 3 way link exchanges, social media sites and buying links to improve rankings.
This is where the Google/SEO relationship is at today. It’s all about relevance and whatever makes the most sense for relevance in the future is what Google will do. Some ideas that Google and SEOs have thrown out for the next evolutionary steps:
– Page Load Speed
– Bounce Rate
– Time on Site
– Pages per Visit