The Google Knol - Good for SEO?

Last week with the launch of the new "Knol" service, Google have added yet another twist to the ever changing world of the web and search engine optimisation / online marketing.

The "Knol", has been designed, they say, to encourage people from all over the web to create rich authoritative content which can then be indexed by its search engine (and of course have Google ads added of course if you want).

The expectation is that "Knols", will be different from blogs which many see as casual and opinionated,  Knols instead being informative, well researched, well written, fact based articles on a very specific subject. For more information on Knol's see http://knol.google.com/k

All very interesting, but will the Knol have more power than a traditional blog? or a Wikipedia entry, some in the SEO world think that they may and already have some data to prove that they have some worth. If this is true it could of course could lead to lots of Knols being published for the wrong reasons (nothing new there then).

In IOM's case, anything new on the Web is welcome and the Knol, not being subject to being altered by any passing Tom, Dick or Harry, as with Wikipedia, means that it will be a better marketing tool to publish the sort of expert information that can be provided by our clients, or written for them by one of our expert copywriters.

To be sure, it is early days and the performance of the Knol, SEO wise,  is up for debate, but the site will get a hell of a lot of traffic, and thus deserves careful consideration in any marketing strategy.

By the way KNOL ™ = A unit of KNOwLedge.