From movies and restaurants to cities, when people want more information about something, we usually “Google it.”
So what comes up when you do a quick search for Edmonton?
The first image that pops up is a photo of the Rossdale power plant and water treatment centre.
“If you come here and that’s the first image that you see, that’s what you think,” said Dana DiTomaso, president of digital marketing agency Kick Point.
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“But that’s not what we saw when we first took a look at the city and I think that’s something people are missing for sure.
“That’s where the time just needs to be put in to shape the search results to the perception you want to give, the brand of Edmonton.”
When you do a Google search of Edmonton, a “Knowledge Panel” comes up on the right side of your screen.
“That is the information that Google feels is most relevant to someone just doing a generic search of Edmonton,” DiTomaso explained.
A Reddit thread describes the image as “ugly” and “terrible” and asks: “Can we tell Google to update our city’s image?”
But DiTomaso says it’s not that simple.
“It’s not like you can call up somebody at Google and say, ‘Hey, do you mind flipping the switch?’ It’s not how it works,” she notes. “Google themselves, they don’t even know necessarily what’s going to come up when you do a search; it’s all on the computer.
“This is the technical aspect of search engine optimization — thinking about: what are the decisions the computer’s made that makes that image show up, and then how do we influence the computer to make better decisions?”
To compare, images that show up on the Knowledge Panel when you search other Canadian cities, like Calgary and Vancouver, are mostly beautiful skyline photos.
DiTomaso says that could mean the municipalities did a lot of behind-the-scenes SEO work — or it could just be a happy coincidence.
“They may have just got lucky,” she said. “Maybe they didn’t put any effort in but Google happened to pick that image and so they’re like, ‘Oh, we’re fine, we don’t have to do anything else.'”
While a more extensive Google image search of Edmonton showcases photos of the river valley and more inspiring aerial and skyline views, the power plant is the one Google’s algorithm has selected for the landing page.
“It’s actually not on the Edmonton Wikipedia page,” DiTomaso said. “At some point it probably was and then it was removed in favour of another image, but what’s happened is no other image has come to replace it as well, and so that’s why it’s still showing up.”
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DiTomaso explained there are hundreds of different variables and calculations Google automatically takes into consideration when the main image is selected.
“Google’s algorithm is extremely complex,” she said.
“Google’s image-search algorithm in particular is what’s involved here, and in that case, it’s what’s been uploaded by someone in Edmonton. What’s been geo-located as being close to the city’s centre? What’s the most interesting image? What’s been linked to a lot? What do people click on?
So, how could the city change the image that automatically pops up for Edmonton?
“They would have to invest in SEO to get a photo that’s the right size and then start to put that work in to educate Google’s algorithm that this is the photo that should be showing up,” DiTomaso explained.
“Google is really only operating on what you tell it and we haven’t told it enough yet on what image we want it to show.”
A City of Edmonton spokesperson told Global News in an email that it’s working with Google to explore better image options.
“Though our Wiki page is filled with some wonderful and diverse images, we too think we can do better with that Google landing page,” said Ryan Barkway, the city’s branch manager of marketing.
“We are also looking at using Google in different and exciting ways — some fun things will be happening in the coming months.”
As the city understands it, Barkway said, the image is electronically chosen by Google through searching out “a publicly available image most closely related to the geographic coordinates of the city it is representing,” which is why the power plant image comes up.
“We are looking into options to have the coordinates reflect a more fitting image or even suite of images,” Barkway said.
DiTomaso says it could take months — and a lot of work — before a new photo pops up.
“You make suggestions and then you hope that Google picks up on it,” she said. “It is a lot of work — and not an overnight process by any means.”
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