Google’s SearchLiaison responded to a tweet that was sort of “thinking out loud” about whether a particular tactic might be useful in recovering from the helpful content update system. SearchLiason offered his opinion on why this might not be a good idea.
One thing SearchLiaison made clear is that she didn’t want her tweet to come across as scolding Lily Ray.
He tweeted:
Also, I want to be very clear that I don’t mean this as a critic @lilyraynyc who has been a staunch defender of creators. He recently made a video that is worth watching. In it, he touches on some of the same “show Google” concerns I’m covering: https://t.co/QfnffusL2r…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 21, 2024
Be more than an affiliate/review site
SearchLiaison responded to Lily Ray that she was making connections between sites affected by the September 2023 review update and the current March core algorithm update. There is a bit of context that needs to be seen to understand SearchLiaison’s response because a cursory reading doesn’t show the whole picture because what SearchLiaison responded to wasn’t just the only thing that got attention. It’s worth putting his answer in context to better understand what he meant.
Lily noted that the sites under discussion had more than just content, they had an e-commerce side to them.
She tweeted:
The update from the last two weeks seems to have hit a lot of websites with “pet” content.
But these two places – i they are seeing big gains.
As you can see, they weren’t really hit by the HCU (letter E), but they hit a lot more… pic.twitter.com/3M1eG9bj1M
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) March 21, 2024
He then tweeted:
It’s also worth noting that the sites have an e-commerce component. They do more than content.
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) March 21, 2024
The discussion progressed to discussing possible “overlapping signals” between sites affected by the review system and the helpful content system (HCU), with Terry Van Horne tweeting:
The “lucky ones” may be the “anomalies” that help determine which signals overlap. For example, there is a lot of talk about “affiliate links”, but I’m sure it’s more about where the ads are placed on the page, the number, and no ad/sponsorship disclosure. Not the kind of ads
— Terry Van Horne (@terryvanhorne) March 21, 2024
With Lily Ray answering:
“Yeah, tons of crossover from what I’m seeing. But at this point, a site is ‘lucky’ if it’s only been affected by review updates, not HCU.
Terry responded by mentioning his doubts about suggestions made by others that being an affiliate site might be a connection, that it was not the type of advertising that contributed to the problems but other factors.
he he tweeted:
“The ‘lucky ones’ can be the ‘anomalies’ that help determine which signals overlap. For example, there’s a lot of talk about ‘affiliate links’, but I’m sure it’s more about where the ads on the page, the number and no ad/sponsorship disclosures. It’s not the type of ads”
This is how the discussion flowed and morphed into talking about affiliate sites.
Someone replied to the second tweet about sites having more than one component:
Add to cart FTW.
— Rupert Du Maine (@Rupert_Du_Maine) March 21, 2024
It was the following tweet by Lily Ray that SearchLiaison replied:
“Yeah…I wonder if e-commerce integration is something that could help a lot of HCU-affected sites recover over time.
I realize this is much easier said than done…but it shows Google that your site does more than just affiliate/review content.”
Lily wasn’t suggesting that e-commerce integration would be helpful for recovery, she was just throwing it out there, “asking” or maybe even thinking out loud.
SearchLiaison responded by warning against doing things to “show off Google,” which means being motivated to do something for Google rather than focusing on users.
link search he tweeted:
“I wouldn’t recommend that people start adding carts because they ‘show Google’ any more than I would recommend that anyone do anything that they think ‘shows Google’ something. You want to do things that make sense to your visitors, because what ” show Google” that you have a great site is to be… a great site so your visitors don’t add things you assume are just for Google.
Also Lily, I don’t mean this towards you in particular or negatively. It’s just a common thought that many understandably deal with.
Doing things you think are just for Google is falling behind what our ranking systems are trying to reward instead of being ahead of them. Everything I said here: https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1725275245571940728“
SearchLiaison continued the theme of websites trying to “show” by listing examples of the kind of things that fall into the dead end of focusing on the wrong things.
It continued:
“Stop trying to ‘show things to Google.'” I’ve been through a lot of sites at this point (and I appreciate the feedback) and the patterns tend to go something like this:
– Something that says an “expert” reviewed the content because someone mistakenly believes that ranks them better
– The weird stuff in the table of contents got pushed to the top because who knows, along the way, somehow that became something that I guess people assume ranks you better
– The page has been updated within a few days, or is even fresh on the exact day, although the content doesn’t particularly need anything fresh and someone probably did a very light rewrite and a new date because they think “Google shows ” you have fresh content and you will rank better.
– The page ends up with a series of “hey, here are some frequently asked questions” because someone used a tool or other method to add things that they think people are searching for specifically because they heard if you add a bunch of popular searches to the page , that ranks you better not because anyone who comes to your page wants it
– I can barely read the main content of the pages because I keep getting interrupted by things shoved in the middle. Which isn’t so much a “Google show” to think about as it is just an unsatisfying experience”
He acknowledged that Google’s algorithms aren’t perfect, and that there are likely plenty of examples of top-ranking sites doing the things he just said not to do.
SearchLiaison made it clear that if an SEO is doing something because they think that’s what Google’s signals are looking for or that it’s a quality signal, they’re doing it for the wrong reasons and they’re at a dead end. All the focus should be on whether it’s good for the user, not whether Google is looking for a particular signal.
Explained:
“What if. A million times yes. You will find pages that still rank, from both big sites and small sites, that do these things. Since our ranking systems are not perfect, and after this current update, we will continue to work on them, which I also covered before:
And I really hope that our guidance will improve to help people understand that what Google wants is what people want. “
It’s probably Google’s failure to communicate
SearchLiaison blamed Google’s documentation, a failure to communicate, whether SEOs were walking around recommending adding that something was reviewed by an “expert” and so on.
He also gave a preview of what the draft document currently says.
He wrote:
“I’m pushing for a whole new help page that might improve this point. Part of the current draft says things like:
“The biggest key to success with Google Search is to have content that is designed to appeal to people, rather than being what you’ve heard ‘Google wants’. For example, sometimes people write content more longer than is useful to your readers because they’ve heard somewhere that “Google wants” long content.
What Google wants is content that people like, content that your own readers and visitors will find useful and satisfying. This is the foundation of your potential success with Google. Any questions you have about creating content for Google will lead back to this principle. “Is this content that my visitors would find satisfying?” If the answer is yes, then go for it, because that’s what Google wants.”
SearchLiaison noted that it is not part of Google Search and that its role is to be the link that communicates back and forth between people on both sides of the search box.
He then came back to urge the search marketing community to stop focusing on trying to figure out what they think Google’s algorithm rewards and then show it. Although you didn’t mention it, it’s very likely that this includes checking the SEQA guidelines for things to do.
Seriously, you’ll always get better results by looking at your site visitors’ feedback, which includes both explicit feedback (where they tell you how they feel) and implicit feedback (where an analytics like Clarity shows you how site visitors feel at through your user). interaction signals).
SearchLiaison continued:
“Those who deliver quality experiences, I personally want to see you succeed.
But please If you want to be successful, stop doing a lot of the things you’ve heard second, third, whatever that’s supposed to “show Google” something and give your visitors a great, satisfying experience. This is how you show Google’s ranking systems that you should do well.”
Spirit Of Google Guidelines
Nine years ago I wrote an article on User Experience Marketing that explained the value of optimizing for people instead of keywords.
I suggested:
Optimize for people, not keywords.
Doing so will change the way you write your content, how it’s organized, how you link internally, and in my experience, it’s always good for rankings.
Want links? Optimize for user experience
Links are the expression of people’s enthusiasm. People link because they feel good about it. Anything you do that gets people excited will increase links, increase user engagement signals, increase everything that makes a site work.
For whatever reason, the search industry keeps trying to show Google that they’re relevant, show Google that their content is authoritative, that they’re experts. Some go so far as to invent fake authors with AI-generated photos and fake profiles on LinkedIn, because they thought this would prove to Google that the content is expert.
But really, so be it, right?
Featured image by Shutterstock/RYO Alexandre
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