AOL's highly sensitive data was put online for a short period of time before it was quickly taken down again subsequent to world-wide controversy. But this short amount of time was sufficient for the data to be picked up and spread all over the net.
The leaked data is very useful for SEO analysis by SEO companies and Web management teams, who check to see whether the keywords they are targeting are keywords that are being searched for, and whether their search engine position for those terms are of any benefit to them. The data allows people to come up with graphs and charts to analyse how web users use search engines, and can show percentages for how users click on the search results.
The following graph, for example, uses the AOL data to show that most people use the first page of search engine results to find the site that they are looking for.
It shows that the majority of online searchers don't go past the first page - this a very good statistic and the chart makes it plain that a website needs to be on the first page of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) to be of much benefit to that company.Other tools have sprung up that use the controversially leaked data to make suggestions for the keywords that you should be optimising for. One such tool is from a site ironically named "bad neighbourhood".
This tool allows you to enter the search term you'd like to be found for and then gives you a list of related results which search engine users are actually searching for: using the AOL data.
There might be a lot of good information and tools out there springing up from these leaked results, but there is also room for the creation of spam and spam techniques. For example, a modified version of the above keyword suggestion tool could be made to serve up the user of the tool a false set of results that may be of benefit to an unethical, black-hat spammer. Other worries are of spammers skewing the data so that their site looks favourable from the results they chart for you.
A big problem is that the original AOL data is not available for users to reference after they use one of the many tools now springing up. It is fortunate, then, that most of the sites that this data exists on are ethical sites that don't warrant concern. However, because of the lack of reference point, unethical spammers can use the pretence of the AOL data to make up results that may trick a user into believing what an unethical search engine optimisation workers might want them to believe.
This controversial leak by AOL, although very unpopular with a lot of people, can be very useful for the direct analysis of search engine results, but plenty of caution and scepticism must be used when using the results served up by websites as tools or information where the original data is no-longer available.
So remember: don't believe everything you read, double check everything, and if in doubt find that white-hat search engine professional and pick their brains. After all: spam is all around us, tread carefully!
