Recent statements from Googlers indicate that the algorithm is working the way it’s supposed to and that site owners should just focus more on their users and less on trying to give the algorithm what it’s looking for. But the Googlers themselves also say that the search team is working on a way to show more good content.
This can seem confusing because if the algorithm isn’t broken, why are they also working on it as if it’s somehow broken? The answer to the question is somewhat surprising.
Google’s point of view
It’s important to try to understand how search looks from Google’s point of view. Google makes it easy to do this with its Search Off The Record (SOTR) podcast because it’s often just Googlers talking about search from their side of the search box.
And in a recent SOTR podcast, Googlers Gary Illyes and John Mueller talked about how something inside Google might be broken, but from their side of the search box it’s a minor thing, not worth an announcement. But then people outside of Google notice that something is broken.
It is in this context that Gary Illyes made the following statement about the decision to “outsource” (communicate) that something is broken.
He shared:
“There’s also the flip side where we’re like, ‘Well, we don’t really know if this is going to get noticed,’ and two minutes later there’s a blog posting something about ‘Google is no longer indexing new articles. . How about?” And I say, “Okay, let’s externalize it.”
John Mueller then asks:
“Okay, so if there’s more external pressure on us, we’d outsource it?”
And Gary replied:
“Yes. For sure. Yes.”
John continues with:
“So the louder the outsiders are, the more likely Google will say something?”
Gary then answered yes and no because sometimes nothing is broken and there is nothing to advertise even though people complain that something is broken.
Explained:
“I mean, in certain cases, yes, but it doesn’t work all the time, because some of the things that people perceive externally as a failure on our end actually work as intended.”
So ok sometimes things work as they should but what’s broken is on the site owner’s side and maybe they can’t see it for whatever reason and you can tell because sometimes people tweet about getting stuck in an update that hasn’t happened. as some people thought their sites were mistakenly caught in the site reputation abuse crackdown because their sites lost rankings at the same time manual actions went out.
The non-existent algorithms
Then there are the people who keep insisting that their sites suffer from the HCU (Useful Content Update) even though there is no longer an HCU system.
Search Liaison recently he tweeted on the subject of people who say they were caught in the HCU.
“I know people keep referring to the useful content (or update) system, and I understand that, but we don’t have a separate system like that right now. It’s all part of our core ranking systems:
It’s a fact, all signals from the HCU are now part of the core algorithm which consists of many parts and there is no longer a thing that used to be the HCU. So the algorithm is still looking for help, but there are other signals as well because in a basic update a lot of things change.
Thus, people may need to focus less on helpfulness-related cues and be more open to the possibility of a wider range of problems rather than just one thing (usefulness), which may not even be the reason a site lost its ranking.
mixed signals
But then there are mixed signals where Googlers say things are working as they should, but that the search team is working to show more sites, implying that the algorithm isn’t working as it should.
On June 3, SearchLiaison talked about how people who say they have algorithmic actions against them don’t. The context of the statement was in response to a June 3 tweet from someone who said they were affected by an algorithm update on May 6 and didn’t know what to fix because they didn’t receive a manual action. Note that the tweet has a typo where they wrote June 6th when they meant May 6th.
The original of June 3 tweet refers to manual site reputation abuse actions:
“I know @searchliaison says there was no algorithmic change on June 6th, but the hits we’ve received since then have been swift and brutal.
Something changed, and we didn’t get the luxury of manual actions to tell us what we did wrong, and neither did anyone else in gaming media.”
Before going into what SearchLiason said, the above tweet could be seen as an example of focusing on the wrong “signal” or thing, and instead it could be more productive to be open to a wider range of possible reasons why the site lost the ranking.
SearchLiaison replied:
“I totally understand that thinking, and I won’t go back over what I covered in my previous long post, except to reiterate that 1) some people think they have algorithmic spam action, but they don’t, and 2) I really don’t want to a manual action”.
In the same response, SearchLiaison left the door open that it’s possible that search could do better, and that they’re looking into how to do that.
He said:
“And I’ll also reiterate what both John and I have said. We’ve heard concerns like the ones you’ve expressed; the search team we’re both part of has heard them. We’re looking at ways to improve.”
And not only does SearchLiaison leave the door open to the possibility that something will change at Google to show more sites, John Mueller also said something similar last month.
John he tweeted:
“I can’t make any promises, but the team working on this is explicitly evaluating how sites can/will improve in Search for the next update. It would be great to show more users the content that people have worked so hard on and where places have been much considered for utility.”
SearchLiaison said they’re looking for ways to improve, and Mueller said they’re evaluating how sites “can or will improve in Search for the next update.” So how do you reconcile that something is working the way it should be and yet there is room for improvement?
Well, one way to look at it is that the algorithm is functional and satisfactory, but not perfect. And since nothing is perfect, that means there’s room for improvement and opportunities for improvement, which is the case with everything, right?
Takeaway food:
1. It may be useful to consider that everything can be refined and improved not necessarily broken because nothing is perfect.
2. It may also be productive to consider that help is only one sign of many signs and what might appear to be an HCU problem may not be a problem at all, in which case a wider range of possibilities.
Featured image by Shutterstock/ViDI Studio
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