[HN Gopher] May 2022 core update releasing for Google Search
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May 2022 core update releasing for Google Search
Author : taubek
Score : 77 points
Date : 2022-05-25 16:59 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (developers.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (developers.google.com)
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| I own a small (~500k in sales/annum) ecommerce site. Enough for
| 3-4 employees, premises and a small owners salary.
|
| About 50% of our sales come from organic search results (Google).
| We write a lot of content, have long form product pages, put out
| YouTube videos, sponsor blog posts, etc etc. but we have NO IDEA
| what really works, despite paying for services like ahrefs.
|
| All we know is that when we drop off the first page of Google
| (which is increasingly filled with content and ads instead of
| search results) our sales take a dramatic hit. And that hit could
| easily make or break the business and the people we employ.
|
| So Google, when you make updates like this, it has real
| implications on millions of small businesses. It's not just a
| feature for "user engagement" or "customer satisfaction", it's a
| big deal.
| akamoonknight wrote:
| Apologies for the naivety of this question, but it's it
| possible to "wean" yourself off of Google (or any one income
| source)? that is, maybe "pretend" that by default you're only
| receiving 50% of your total income and then during leaner times
| you have some buffer to figure something out. I can understand
| there might be no way to do this in some (or maybe all)
| industries, but wondering what kind of resilience like this is
| possible in smaller businesses.
| vimy wrote:
| What about Bing, DuckDuckGo, Brave search, .. ? Insignificant
| compared to Google?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Is it possible to tell if a user came from DuckDuckGo?
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| Yes, it's insignificant. Bing is a few %, perhaps from people
| who are using the default search engine and think/don't care
| that it's google
| puranjay wrote:
| I ran a marketing agency and this is the problem with SEO. No
| one really knows what works. Sure, we know what works _right
| now_ , but a new update might completely change that. And
| worse, you might get penalized because Google decided that what
| it _used_ to think was great (and worthy of top rankings) is
| now suddenly not kosher.
|
| You can do that Google tells you ("create great content") but
| you still have to get it found. Unlike social media, this isn't
| always a space where you can make the content exciting enough
| that it gets "discovered" through word of mouth. Not a lot of
| entertaining content pieces for "affordable door repairs
| seattle"
|
| Leaving this industry has done wonders for my stress levels.
| There was constant anxiety that you'd wake up one day and find
| that your rankings have tanked overnight.
| ganbatekudasai wrote:
| That's a reasonable perspective, but as someone with no stakes
| in it I would hope that Google prioritizes its users first and
| foremost. Note that:
|
| * I am not saying that these interests are mutually exclusive.
|
| * I am also not asserting that Google search is presently doing
| a good job serving its users, far from it in my personal
| opinion.
|
| I certainly want "customer satisfaction" to be the big deal,
| however. I'm not quite sure why you put that term in quotes.
| edm0nd wrote:
| Spend 10k a month on ads and you'll be guaranteed to be found
| as well as bring in new customers.
|
| There are ways to position your advertising budget so it
| generates new and more profit when you drop ads on Google &
| Bing + social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and
| Tiktok :)
|
| But yes, being at the mercy of the search engine Gods is no
| fun.
| ushakov wrote:
| Google Search is like a mob
|
| you either pay for the ads or else your potential customers
| will be presented with a competitor, who did pay for the ads
| (more than you)
|
| same thing happened to Basecamp:
| https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1168986962704982016
|
| this is the kinda thing you do when you have an illegal
| monopoly on search-based ads
| whack wrote:
| Google is aware that this is a big deal. It is a big deal to
| them as well. Search is their golden goose and they are
| terrified of doing anything that would break it or worsen it.
| No one has ever accused the Search team of having a "move fast
| and break things" culture.
|
| That said, their interests aren't perfectly aligned with yours.
| Their main priority is producing a scalable algorithm that
| outputs rankings that users are happy with. If their A/B tests
| show that a new algorithm makes their users happier, then they
| will use that new algorithm (after an extremely long period of
| A/B testing and due diligence and gradual rollouts). The fact
| that your specific website is helped or hurt by their new
| algorithm, is not their priority.
|
| If they decided to prioritize stability over user satisfaction,
| I can guarantee that you, me, and most people will eventually
| abandon Google entirely in favor of a different search engine
| that gives us results that we're happier with. This is exactly
| why smart companies continually try to innovate and change,
| even if they need to break a few eggs in the process.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| I agree with everything you said, but there's one additional
| nuance: what may be best for the user, may not be what's best
| for the business.
|
| I'd say that if there's a general trend over the past decade,
| it's that search results haven't necessarily lead to a better
| user experience, but Google did a lot of fighting with spam
| sites, in addition to more ads / integrations with their
| wider ecosystem.
|
| All this makes for a lot of quality hits in the whole
| experience, and I totally understand the frustration of
| people who depend upon their rankings. I don't think there's
| a solution, though, as Google needs to keep evolving,
| especially to fight SEO spam that tries to game their
| algorithms.
| epolanski wrote:
| What do you mean by happiness of results, how would you
| measure it.
| leetcrew wrote:
| happiness is hard to measure, but I can easily think of
| metrics that indicate _unhappiness_ off the top of my head.
| not clicking through any of the hits, continuing to the
| second page of results, and retrying the same query phrased
| differently are all strong signals that the user was not
| satisfied with the results.
| mandeepj wrote:
| > most people will eventually abandon Google entirely in
| favor of a different search engine that gives us results that
| we're happier with.
|
| LOL! Which one?
| enos_feedler wrote:
| That would be a funny question to ask my parents. Not sure
| they would have a legit answer let alone a sarcastic one.
| dbg31415 wrote:
| So why not be more transparent about what their goals are
| here?
|
| Nobody has to spell out specifics, but the broad strokes on
| what they are trying to achieve, or issues they are trying to
| solve, would be nice.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Their main priority is producing a scalable algorithm that
| outputs rankings that users are happy with.
|
| Are they measuring happiness? Or are they using bad proxies
| for happiness, or even sometimes ignoring happiness to
| optimize for number of searches?
|
| An ideal search engine that delivers perfect results for
| everyone would be a site people only spent a few moments on.
| A shitty search engine with a virtual monopoly would be a
| place people wasted tons of their time banging their heads
| against. A search engine is like a door; you generally don't
| hang out in the doorway.
|
| edit:
|
| > most people will eventually abandon Google entirely in
| favor of a different search engine that gives us results that
| we're happier with
|
| Nobody is doing this. Not only would it take a fortune to
| become a contender, not only are sites required to optimize
| for google, but in the end google would buy and shut down any
| threat. You could maybe compete with google if you had state
| backing and could lose infinite money over infinite time, but
| then google would just lobby to have you banned.
|
| This is aside from the brand dominance, which would still
| keep google as the top search engine if the entire
| infrastructure of Search was thrown into a dumpster and the
| brand sold to people who rebuilt it from scratch with no
| knowledge of how it worked before.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I feel sorry for you, but in your position, my absolute first
| priority would be finding sales from sources other than Google.
| They're a private company and they have no obligation to you
| whatsoever.
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| I agree, that's why half our sales come from elsewhere
| (social media, mailing list, subscriptions etc.) But we can't
| ignore the power of organic search. For most people it's
| where they start when shopping
|
| With the level of power google has over us, can they really
| hide behind the defense of being a private company? What are
| the changes being made to the algorithm? Why isn't this
| public knowledge?
|
| Perhaps we should augment any decline in traffic from Google
| via paid search ads on Google. If google really is operating
| as a private company, maximising shareholder value,
| deliberately pushing businesses onto this path is a perfectly
| logical strategy for them to pursue.
|
| The unfortunate implications on society is a consolidation of
| wealth and power and a widening gap between those who have
| and those who do not.
| zepearl wrote:
| If I interpret your statement correctly, you're basically
| asking, in a summarized form, this: Is it
| right for Google, by changing their (non-public) algos, to
| de-rank to lower levels your website?
|
| ?
|
| (therefore multiple themes like a potential conflict
| involving their public_vs_private services, impact of
| changes on the global users, can search algos be non-
| public, lack of alternatives, etc...)
| zikzak wrote:
| Do you submit a feed to Google?
|
| https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/7439058?hl=en
| rurp wrote:
| Not to be snarky but is there any evidence this goes
| somewhere other than /dev/null? I've seen support forum
| threads with hundreds of posts, many of them from users
| saying they had submitted feedback, and can't think of a
| single time it visibly made a difference.
| pyr0hu wrote:
| He is not talking about submitting feedbacks, but using
| the Google Merchants for providing a feed for their
| products.
| beckman466 wrote:
| quattrofan wrote:
| zxienin wrote:
| Are there successful examples of ".. sales from sources other
| than Google", or ones where majority is not via GS (google
| search)?
|
| Short of good examples, this tough love comes of misplaced.
|
| GS is THE dominant search engine. They WANT to be in that
| spot. It sounds strange to me, that google put themselves in
| such spot, and project that no one should have obligation
| towards them.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| a lot of small ecommerce companies use social media these
| days. I talked to a guy running a men's grooming product
| company recently and they almost exclusively use
| TikTok/Youtube/instagram and have put a lot of emphasis on
| having a community around it and relying on word of mouth
| rather than buying ads on google or Facebook or relying on
| search.
| jeromegv wrote:
| There are tons of strategies, that is one of them. Many
| people use it. Doesn't mean this is the right one for
| everyone.
|
| This comes with risk too. You are at the mercy of the
| tiktok/YT/IG algo instead of the Google algo. There's
| lots of work that goes into making content that is
| engaging and liked on social media. Having your community
| is not enough because even if you have 20K followers, if
| your content is not engaging, people won't see it in
| their feed.
|
| As for relying strictly on word of mouth? Sure, but
| that's likely a minority of brands. Most people need the
| distribution from one of the big tech co.
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| Here's some examples that we use:
|
| - Instagram Posts + Stories
|
| - Weekly Email to Mailing List subscribers
|
| - Subscription for Free Delivery/Benefits (like Amazon
| Prime)
|
| There are a lot of people that come direct as well or
| through Google searches for our brand name, especially
| repeat customers (about 70% of our customers have ordered
| before). These people can be word of mouth, ads we take out
| in other publications, non-sponsored blog posts from others
| etc.
| spockz wrote:
| How do you make the distinction, if at all, between
| people using the search bar to find your site again (or
| after hearing about from someone else) vs people landing
| on the site because they found a product on Google?
| altdataseller wrote:
| "We write a lot of content, have long form product pages, put
| out YouTube videos, sponsor blog posts"
|
| Unfortunately, that's all table stakes. A lot of other
| companies do the same thing.
| ProAm wrote:
| Time to buy google ads so you'll always be on the first page.
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| Rephrased: "have you thought about paying Google for
| 'protection' against their updates"
| drusepth wrote:
| Alternatively, you're also free to pay many of the same
| manipulators that knocked you off for their SEO services in
| bumping you back up...
| unwind wrote:
| I love how they use the word "perform" to talk about how sites
| rank or place in search results.
|
| It's not about them finding better results, it's about the
| results themselves "performing" variously well in the search. It
| feels so backwards, and feeds into the sad idea that all of the
| content is just there for Google to bring in front of ad viewers.
| :/
|
| The next time I lose something around the house, and my fiancee
| ironizes about how bad I am at searching, I'm going to blame the
| search performance of the missing thing, instead.
| aleksiy123 wrote:
| I feel like this is just because they are directly addressing
| the webmaster who think in terms of SEO and relative rankings.
| On the individual level they are trying to "perform".
|
| To take your example for the seller of a specific brand of
| product you couldn't find. It might be a problem with their
| location or branding. In that case it seems like it makes
| sense? You are the search algorithm they are trying to game.
| epolanski wrote:
| Google is no longer in the business of finding but ranking
| websites.
| PixelPaul wrote:
| Sales for my business has been great for about a year now. I was
| just about to hire my first person. The last few weeks sales from
| google clicks have dropped a LOT and I think this is why. Now I
| am not so sure about hiring someone. Thanks google.
| therein wrote:
| franze wrote:
| as I quite often get a few of "we are doomed, a core update hit
| us" calls whenever googles does something like this, a long time
| ago wrote a guide on
|
| How to do NOTHING when a core update hits you.
|
| https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/a/google-update
|
| hope someone finds it useful
| AaronFriel wrote:
| Would love to see Google address scraping mirror sites such as
| gitmemory.com and algorithmic content farms.
|
| I've been using Bing (via DuckDuckGo) for a bit and find that
| it's a little bit less gamed by these things. Perhaps because
| those sites are optimizing for exploiting Google's algorithm?
| dmw_ng wrote:
| Check out the uBlacklist extension, could not live without it.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Just let me turn on and leave on verbatim mode permanently
| please?! Google Search is broken/terrible without it. Even with
| it 50% of the results are just AI generated spam, and I even have
| an ad-blocker filter to remove a ton of them.
| karlicoss wrote:
| as a workaround I'm using a keyword search bookmark in firefox
| mapped to 'g'
| https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=li:1
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's always confusing to me when I see this signal because I
| never have Google fall on its face so badly that I wish
| verbatim came back.
|
| I remember verbatim. It wasn't good. It couldn't find even
| small fluctuations in spelling or the precise wording of a
| target. Three or four parallel searches to go through all the
| tenses of verbs.
| anyfoo wrote:
| This is so much a problem. I get that Google is trying to be
| fuzzy to serve users that are not computer literate and may
| phrase their queries awkwardly, but by now it seems that they
| have completely overshot that target.
|
| Google's search engine seems to assume that every user is 3
| years old, and never interested in _anything_ detailed, but
| instead trying to learn basic human tasks.
|
| This does not only not work when searching for very specific
| technical terms (that Google likes to replace/expand with
| superficially similar but completely irrelevant terms). I get
| that that's probably a minority of searches. But I think it's
| even _worse_ for more common searches, since now the sphere of
| SEO spam that you will be inundated with in your results is
| drastically expanded, with additional spam that only matches
| because Google did not take your search terms more literally!
|
| And then "verbatim mode" takes way too many clicks to activate
| (every single time), and is mutually exclusive with setting
| time constraints (e.g. search results for "last month").
|
| I understand why more and more of my queries auto-suggest
| "reddit" as the last term. By now, you rather have to hope that
| a human has asked a similar question on reddit, and that other
| humans happened to know the answer, instead of searching for
| yourself. It used to be the opposite.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| YES EXACTLY and this transcends Google too, so many products
| need a "I know what I'm doing" switch for power users. I
| despise this mass infantilization of UIs happening right now.
| I develop web apps and work closely with UX and I'm always
| trying to push this particular envelope... unfortunately it's
| managers and "visionary" bosses who want one unified design
| seemingly made for a child.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Seriously - this makes using google so damn annoying. The fact
| that verbatim is buried behind multiple clicks and you also
| have to quote is confusing and slow. You can easily permanently
| disable something like safesearch - why is verbatim not the
| same? And why is there not a simple equivalent to quotes to
| search verbatim?
| ProAm wrote:
| I wonder if search results will return to the first page of
| results?
| rurp wrote:
| As great as that would be, putting more emphasis on organic
| search results would be one of the biggest pivots in company
| history. Of the countless updates they've made to the search
| results page I'm not sure if a single one made organic results
| more visible.
| danuker wrote:
| Based on the interest rate hikes, and therefore the need to
| monetize, I would guess the opposite: more only slightly
| relevant commercial content.
| chrischen wrote:
| Maybe google will release "pro search" where you pay to get
| good search results and hide all spam/ads.
| Yiin wrote:
| kagi.com is doing exactly that (they're still in beta, but
| I'm extremely happy with the results)
| jvsg_ wrote:
| if google search was already so bad in an environment of free
| money, I shudder to think what happens when that money supply
| ends.
| danjc wrote:
| The equivalent of "this sign has sharp edges"
| edm0nd wrote:
| [deleted]
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