Insights
1. Revelations: How Google Search works
Yes, the judgment against Google in the antitrust case was historic.
But, I'm not going to rehash the extensive reporting and articles on Judge Mehta's decision.
Or speculate on the remedies.
I’d rather focus on the treasure trove of information the trial provided.
The court was presented with a massive amount of evidence and exhibits.
What I wanted to find out from those 1000s of pages is whether we're missing key components of how the search engine works, and if this affects our approach to content and SEO.
(A note: Keep in mind that the majority of antitrust exhibits are dated prior to 2020, so it's likely Google has tweaked their processes since then).
Search discoveries from the trial documents
User behavior fuels search
Internal documents confirm that user engagement metrics—such as clicks, hovers, and scrolls—are vital for determining search rankings.
This contradicts previous claims by Google that downplayed the importance of user behavior in favor of content and technical SEO.
"The source of Google's magic is this two-way dialogue with users. With every query, we give a some knowledge, and get a little back. Then we give some more, and get a little more back.
…search is powered by a huge mass of knowledge. But it isn't something we create."
Secondly, Google employs inductive reasoning to analyze user behavior.
This means that patterns are identified from observations rather than relying solely on theoretical frameworks.
This approach allows Google to predict user intent based on past actions:
"We simply use a user's past actions to describe them and match users based on their behavioral similarity." Source
In other words, Google will predict what we want based on the actions we've taken in the past.
This is why we’ve long discussed the importance of user intent and information gain as defining elements in good content.
Now, user intent may finally be getting its due as a leading ranking signal because Google can't understand good content without a user's interaction.
(You'll recall I discussed the 3 intents most SEOs ignore in an early issue of this newsletter).
Next, we discovered from Pandu Nayak's testimony that Google's IS Score is a top-level metric of Search quality.
That score is calculated from search quality rater rankings, which means IS is always a human metric.
You'll be aware that Google uses over 16,000 search quality raters to validate and refine their algorithms.
The ultimate goal is to ensure that user signals are interpreted accurately and effectively.
What can we deduce from the above?
a) Google may have hidden the importance of user behavior because traffic can be manipulated, e.g., purchasing backlinks, using CTR traffic bots.
These tactics aren't effective in the long term, but Google has issued internal warnings to deter discussion about search.
They call out SEOs and competitors here:
b) Google must maintain a competitive advantage. The more their competitors discover about their strategies, the less advantage they have.
Knowing exactly how and what Google tracks is valuable to their competition. For example, the recent leak disclosed several tactics Google uses to rank your site, including demotions to watch out for.
(I wrote about the Anchor Mismatch Demotion in this newsletter).
c) Google doesn't want us to feel like they monitor our every move—even though they probably do.
Event logs, Google Analytics, and many other trackers and products are goldmines of data for Google. All the data they gather helps them present us with targeted ads, recommended content, and even tailored search results based on our actions online.
Looking at Google's internal documents it appears they look primarily at metadata to understand content.
The same document shows us "The 3 Pillars of Ranking:"
- Body: What the document says about itself.
- Anchors: What the Web says about the document.
- User-interactions: What users say about the document.
What to do with this information
a) Ensure you cover all 3 search intents as thoroughly as possible.
When done well, you’ll guide a searcher through the natural progression of knowledge, and they will remain on your page and tend to return to Google less, if at all.
b) Find ways to add to the SERP.
If your post just reframes what’s already ranking, keep researching. Ensure your topic research takes you away from the first three results.
Head over to the (gasp) second page, browse forums, social media groups, YouTube videos, or textbooks.
There is still a lot of quality information that’s not been indexed. Find it and make it accessible to your audience and you will win.
c) Structure and format your content correctly.
This means:
- Headings
- Paragraphs
- Visual elements
- Grammar and spelling
d) Ramp up your metadata.
“… when we get these documents, not only do we create an index, we create a bunch of metadata associated with the document which reflects our understanding of the document. And that has also grown over time. And so that also takes space in the index. And as a result, that results in the number of documents that you can index in a fixed size of storage to go down.” Pandurang Nayak, USA vs Google LLC
Metadata helps search engines categorize and index your webpages.
When you provide clear and relevant metadata, you signal the content's relevance to specific search queries.
Include:
- Well-crafted title tags
- A compelling meta description: Entices users to click on a link, which leads to increased page traffic.
- Metadata provides context for users and search engines: For example, alt text for images helps Google understand what the images depict. This improves a page's relevance for image searches.
- Metadata helps classify and organize content: This makes it easier for users and search engines to navigate and find relevant information. A classification includes details like publication dates, authorship, and access permissions.
The word 'relevance' comes up numerous times in Google's documentation—-and in the trial documents.
As search engines evolve, their algorithms could increasingly rely on metadata to determine content relevance.
Did you learn something from my observations?
I'm working on Part 2 of my discoveries about Search because there's a lot to unpack on query data and ranking.
Please hit reply and type 'YES' if you want to know what I found out.
2. Latest August Core Update News
It's been a week since the latest core update started rolling out.
In his announcement, John Mueller said:
"…we aim to connect people with a range of high quality sites, including small or independent sites that are creating useful, original content, when relevant to users' searches."
(Did you notice the word 'relevant' appeared again?)
That sounds great for some of the smaller sites affected by the HCU last year, but what's actually happening?
1. Many sites previously affected by HCU are beginning to show signs of life. Glenn Gabe, Lily Ray, and Marie Haynes have shared examples of gains.
Somewhere between 30% and 70% of the sites hit by HCU are improving.
2. Improvements are significant–sometimes 200-300%. But, when you are down 99%, an improvement of 300% means you still have a loooonnnngg ways to go.
But, this is how recoveries begin. Before this week, no one was sure when or if this would happen.
3. Remember HouseFresh? They are up.
Multiple sites in travel and recipe niches are up. Unfortunately, Niche Site Lady’s site has not seen a recovery.
4. A Google Search ranking bug was affecting sites, but this was resolved on Tuesday.
Any site fluctuations and volatility you observed may have had zero to do with the update.
5. Patience is necessary. Checking your Search Status Dashboard every 4 hours will not give you definitive answers in the short term.
You may notice changes in search rankings as the update rolls out, but I recommend waiting until it finishes before making any major changes to your site or content.
Google's rewritten core update page says:
…some changes can take effect in a few days, but it could take several months for our systems to learn and confirm that the site as a whole is now producing helpful, reliable, people-first content in the long term.
6. Mixed results.
Remember, Google doesn't target specific sites or individual web pages.
If your site already contains relevant and useful content that focuses on user intent, then you are unlikely to see massive swings.
Since search results are 'dynamic in nature,' any drop in your ranking likely means that other pages on the web are doing a better job of helping a searcher.
Keep in mind that there's no guarantee that changes you make to your website will result in noticeable impact in search results, and that positions in Google Search results aren't static or fixed in place. Google's search results are dynamic in nature because user expectations evolve and the open web itself is constantly changing with new and updated content. This constant change can cause both gains and drops in organic Search traffic. Google.
3. AI overviews aren't hitting large publishers
Remember when AI overviews (then SGE) were not yet public and the world of SEO was on fire? Some declaring the end of SEO or Google?
Well, the results are beginning to roll in from all corners of the web.
Dotdash Meredith and Ziff Davis are publicly traded, so their results are interesting to follow.
Dotdash reported that the impact of Google AI Overviews on their sites is "negligible."
There’s no question that search is changing, and at a faster pace than ever before. But, it’s also changing slower than many of us imagined at this time last year.
Always keep in mind that, regardless of what the technology can do (which is often questionable), it is humans who must implement the change and humans that must adopt the change.
All of these things happen incrementally and at a slower pace than we think.
Related statistics: Forbes, Business Insider, and Entrepreneur are the top-linked media outlets in AIOs with 804, 148, and 45 links, respectively.
I hope these insights help. For more tips, follow me here.
