Google is most likely where you will start your search while looking for something online. Google frequently improves its search architecture in an effort to produce more accurate and pertinent results, but occasionally the search giant focuses on a particular problem. Google claims it will target clickbait in the upcoming significant update to its search algorithm.
Google is aiming to avoid clickbait, although not using the term. In what it refers to as the “useful content upgrade,” Google will give priority to websites that generate unique, high-quality content. Pages created just for high search engine optimization (SEO) rankings will be degraded in the meantime.
You’ve probably seen plenty of heavily SEO’d content appear at the top of search results — that’s what it’s designed to do, after all. It might match your search query, but the page is unhelpful, consisting of aggregated information from other sites with no original analysis or reporting. Google uses an example of what happens when you search for a recently released movie. Instead of an original review or analysis of the themes, you might get results for a site that just republishes snippets of other reviews and gears its SEO to rank highly for the movie’s name. The algorithm update aims to fix that and direct you to useful content.
Additionally, Google is warning developers that this update’s effects may go beyond removing SEO spam pages. Websites that rely on this technique to draw visitors can also notice that their other content is losing its appeal. On the other hand, eliminating unhelpful SEO content might improve a website’s overall search ranking. Google also intends to roll out another another upgrade to further its ongoing attempt to increase the exposure of high-quality product review information.
Updates to the Google algorithm are significant for web content, and this one will hurt some websites that depend heavily on SEO. Although Google loves to claim that rivals are only a click away, the majority of people still use it as their primary method of online search. Today, it manages more than 90% of all web searches, which explains why so many websites have modified their material to be suited to Google’s algorithms without consideration for quality or usefulness.
It’s not necessarily incorrect for Google’s detractors to point to their power over the types of content that are popular and easily available as a key issue for the internet. However, there is little opposition. Is Google utilizing its size to suppress competition, or is it merely the case that its technology is so much superior to that of start-up rivals? Numerous regulatory actions and antitrust lawsuits are brought against Google under the latter pretext. Knowing which one it is could take years and the advantage of hindsight. Whatever the case may be, lessening the quantity of clickbait that displays in Google’s search results is a commendable endeavor.
