Google is adjusting its search results in an effort to prioritize “content by the people, for the people” and fight the scourge of clickbait, the company says.
“We know that people don’t find content useful if it feels like it’s designed to attract clicks rather than inform readers,” Google’s Danny Sullivan said in a blog post. “Many of us have experienced the frustration of visiting a web page that seems to have what we’re looking for, but doesn’t meet our expectations. The content may not have the insights you want, or it may not even look like it was created for, or even by, a person.”
So-called “SEO spam”, content written explicitly for the purpose of appearing on search engine results pages, has long been a thorn in the side of companies like Google. To do this, the company will release a “useful content update” next week.
The update covers a series of tweaks to the company’s ranking algorithms that attempt to identify content “that appears to have been created primarily to rank well in search engines rather than to help or inform people.” Google says that in testing, the update has led to particular improvements for searches related to online education, arts and entertainment, shopping and technology.
In one example, Sullivan says, a search about a recent movie can sometimes turn up articles that simply aggregate reviews from other sites; now, “you’ll see more results with unique and authentic information, so you’re more likely to read something you haven’t seen before.”
There are winners and losers from these changes, of course, and online publishers may fear that their content strategies will see them caught in the net. In its advice to “content creators”, Google implies that some of the signals it will use to demote search results are whether or not a website has a primary purpose or focus and whether there is “an existing or intended audience ” what would you find the useful content if it comes directly to the page.
The “banhammer” will be used liberally. “Any content, not just useless content, on certain sites that have relatively high amounts of generally unhelpful content is less likely to perform well in search, assuming there is other content elsewhere on the web that is better served,” says Google. “For this reason, removing unhelpful content could help rank other content.”
In recent months, Google has launched a concerted effort to combat the perception that the company’s search products have gotten worse over time. Headlines like “It’s not just you, Google search really is getting worse” and “Google search has gotten worse. Here’s the trick people have found to avoid it” blame the company’s growing desire to offer structured results, paid ads, and links to other Google services over simple web links, as well as the constant cat-and-mouse game with SEO spam. , and suggests focusing on sites like Reddit to find helpful answers to inquiries
Navneet Alang, writing in the Toronto Star, called the process “kind of a vicious circle.” “Google constantly refines search to try to predict what people want, but in response, entire industries work to pollute search results by offering people a cheap, fake version of what they want,” he wrote.