SEARCHENGINES
Early Complaints & Responses On The Google Search Generative Experience
Google began to slowly roll out the Google Search Generative Experience on Thursday and I posted many screenshots of what I found. Since then, Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, responded to some public complaints and criticism of this new search experience. John Mueller of Google also responded to some questions and complaints.
I figured it would be useful to compile those complaints and responses in this story.
Attribution complaints:
I see you noted how in expanded view, the association is even clearer. SGE is an experiment, so this type of feedback is appreciated and helpful as we continue to improve it. Also shared a bit more on linking here https://t.co/x4LLTp0nVH — again, thank you for the feedback.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 27, 2023
Generative responses are corroborated by sources from the web & when a portion of a snapshot briefly includes content from a specific source, we will prominently highlight that source in the snapshot. In this example, the first link matches that & it also shows in expanded view. pic.twitter.com/xPRit5FssA
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023
It’s the first link to the right of the snapshot. I’ve put a box around it. Also notice the other box at the end. When you see this, you can click through all the corroborating sources without going to expanded mode. pic.twitter.com/AoGoe9uMGJ
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023
It’s the first link even when you don’t expand. That said, appreciate the feedback. SGE is an experimental experience in Search Labs, and it will evolve over time as we learn what is most helpful.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023
Appreciate the feedback, and would encourage you or anyone with access to also make use of the feedback tool that’s part of SGE. It’s an experiment, so the feedback will help us shape it and improve.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023
Appreciate the feedback; will pass it on.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023
Privacy complaint:
We use queries and other feedback to improve the predictive quality of SGE. But similar to autocomplete, we take steps to prevent any personally-identifiable information that may be contained in a query from being used for model training purposes.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023
Timing and location of the roll out:
Country-based roll-outs can be frustrating, sorry! It’s (hopefully) not going to go away, time to be patient :-).
— John Mueller (official) · #StaplerLife (@JohnMu) May 26, 2023
Search Console request:
It’s still early days 🙂
— John Mueller (official) · #StaplerLife (@JohnMu) May 26, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Won’t Change The 301 Signals For Ranking & SEO
Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that there is no way that Google would change how the 301 redirect signal works for SEO or search rankings. Gary added that it’s a very reliable signal.
Nikola Minkov quoted Gary Illyes as saying, “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal,” when asked if a 301 redirect not working is a myth. Honestly, I am not sure the context of this question, as it is not clear from the post on X, but here it is:
More from @methode:
– 301 redirect not working is a myth. “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal”.#SERPConf2024#SERPConf2024International— Nikola Minkov (@n_minkov) April 19, 2024
We’ve covered 301 redirects here countless times – but I never saw a myth that Google does not use 301 redirects as a signal for canonicalization or for passing signals from an old URL to the redirected URL.
Forum discussion at X.
Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Again Says Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages
I am not sure how many times Google has said that you do not need to disavow spammy links, that you can ignore link spam attacks and that links pointing to pages that 404/410 are links that do not count – but John Mueller from Google said it again.
In a thread on X, John Mueller from Google wrote, “if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped.” “They do nothing,” he added, “If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link.”
John then added, “I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.”
Asking if it would hurt to disavow, after responding with the messages above, John wrote:
It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
Earlier this year we had tons of SEOs notice spammy links to 404 error pages, John said ignore them. In 2021, Google said links to 404 pages do not count, Google also said that in 2012 and many other times.
Plus, outside of links to 404 pages, Google has said to ignore spammy links, time and time again – even the toxic links – ignore them. The messaging around this changed in 2016 when Penguin 4.0 was released and Google began devaluing links over demoting them.
Here are those new posts in context:
I’d say add both. Lol
— Jeremy Rivera (@JeremyRiveraSEO) April 11, 2024
Sure. But also, save yourself the work completely :-).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
Re-reading your initial post – if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped. They do nothing. If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link. I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
… but still… is this a dumb idea?
— Rebekah Edwards (@rebekah_creates) April 11, 2024
It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024
And in general, Google says it ignores spammy links, so you should too (not new) but this post from John Mueller is:
I would just ignore them, Google ignores them too. Sometimes they’re just more visible in tools, but that doesn’t mean they’re a problem.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 18, 2024
And then also on Mastodon wrote about a similar situation, “Google has 2 decades of practice of ignoring spammy links. There’s no need to do anything for those links.”
Forum discussion at X.
Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Needs Very Few Links To Rank Pages; Links Are Less Important
Gary Illyes from Google spoke at the SERP Conf on Friday and he said what he said numerous times before, that Google values links a lot less today than it did in the past. He added that Google Search “needs very few links to rank pages.”
Gary reportedly said, “We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.”
I am quoting Patrick Stox who is quoting what he heard Gary say on stage at the event. Here is Patrick’s post where Gary did a rare reply:
I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that
— Gary 鯨理/경리 Illyes (so official, trust me) (@methode) April 19, 2024
Gary said this a year ago, also in 2022 and other times as well. We previously covered that Google said links would likely become even less important in the future. And even Matt Cutts, the former Googler, said something similar about eight years ago and the truth is, links are weighted a lot less than it was eight years ago and that trend continues. A couple of years ago, Google said links are not the most important Google search ranking factor.
Of course, many SEOs think Google lies about this.
Judith Lewis interviewed Gary Illyes at the SERP Conf this past Friday.
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