Google is making a series of updates to Search aimed at tackling clickbait and improving search relevancy, prioritizing original and authentic reviews over recycled information disseminated by aggregator sites. The changes in the form of two updates will be rolled out in the coming weeks, according to a blog post announcement of ranking updates.
“We know that people don’t find content useful if it appears to be designed to attract clicks rather than inform readers. So starting next week, we’ll be rolling out a series of improvements to Search for English users worldwide to make it easier for people to find useful content created specifically by and for people,” the announcement reads. “This update helps ensure that low-quality, non-genuine content does not rank highly in Search, especially for online educational materials, entertainment, shopping, and technical content.”
According to Google spokesperson Jennifer Kutz, a global search ranking update called the “Useful Content Update” will be rolled out globally for English-speaking users on Monday, August 22.
A second update “to make it even easier to find high-quality original reviews” is expected in the coming weeks. The tech giant has updated its product review rankings many times beforemost recently in Dec 2021 and March 2022.
These updates can be very helpful to anyone who has the add reddit “hack” to filter out useless websites in search results in favor of real human experiences. You can see this in action when looking for hardware reviews. For example, if you start a Google search for “Sony WH” in the US, two results with “Reddit” at the end will suggest in favor of the word “review” for the popular Sony WH-1000XM series headphones. While Google’s blog post doesn’t list Reddit as a source for the more personalized and authentic content, it’s hard not to make the association given recent search trends.
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In comparison, the Brave web browser has released a new feature that also boosts Reddit and Stack Exchange content. These can be found under the ‘Discussions’ section without having to add anything to the end of the search terms. The announcement for this browser feature hinted at beliefs that “Google search dies out” after noticing that more people are turning to Reddit to get authentic reviews and answers to questions.
Google offers creators guidelines on its Search Central blog to ensure they “create content that will be successful” after the company’s new updates roll out.