SEARCHENGINES
Google Featured Snippet Callouts, False Premises, MUM & More
Google has launched some improvements to featured snippets, about this result and the content advisories in Google Search. MUM now works with featured snippets to help Google understand the notion of consensus and then highlight words in the featured snippets, known as callouts.
I dug deep into this on Search Engine Land, so here is the short version.
Featured Snippet Callouts & MUM for General Consensous
Google featured snippet callouts, the word or words called out above the featured snippet in a larger font, now can be powered by MUM (which is a new and rare use of MUM in search) to check what other sources are saying about the topic. Google said, “our systems can check snippet callouts against other high-quality sources on the web, to see if there’s a general consensus for that callout, even if sources use different words or concepts to describe the same thing.” “We’ve found that this consensus-based technique has meaningfully improved the quality and helpfulness of featured snippet callouts,” Google told us.
Here is what it looks like:
And Pandu Nayak, Vice President of Search and Fellow, Google, told us that it is hard to game consensus here because featured snippets come from the top search results and those generally are not low quality.
Featured Snippet & People Also Ask False Premise Queries
False premise queries are when a specific query is for information about things that did not happen. Google will show you information that is accurate and remove the false part from the featured snippet in this case. In fact, Google said they have “reduced the triggering of featured snippets in these cases by 40% with this update.”
So if you ask [when did snoopy assassinate Abraham Lincoln] – snoopy did not do that but Google will tell you who did:
This also works for people also ask, because those are built using featured snippets.
About This Result
About this result which launched in February 2021 have been used more than 2.4 billion times Google said.
Google is expanding it to eight more languages including Portuguese (PT), French (FR), Italian (IT), German (DE), Dutch (NL), Spanish (ES), Japanese (JP), and Indonesian (ID), coming later this year.
Plus Google is expanding what it shows in the about this result, adding such as how widely a source is circulated, online reviews about a source or company, whether a company is owned by another entity, or even when our systems can’t �find much info about a source.
Content Advisories Expand
Content advisories launched in 2020, which tells searchers when Google is not so confident with the search results it is presenting. Well, Google is going to show more of that.
Google said it is expanding content advisories to searches where its systems “do not have high confidence in the overall quality of the results available for the search.” Google said this does not mean that there no helpful information is available, or that a pa�rticular result is low-quality. “These notices provide context about the whole set of results on the page, and you can always see the results for your query, even when the advisory is present,” Google added.
Here are some of the SEO takes on Twitter:
Big news. Google is now using MUM to improve features snippets based on understanding if there’s a consensus across multiple high-quality sources on the web. Its systems can check snippet callouts based on that. Also, AI models can understand when a FS isn’t helpful to display… https://t.co/t2OnAVOPaI
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 11, 2022
And more: Google is expanding “About this result” -> “We’re adding more context, such as how widely a source is circulated, online reviews about a source or company, whether a company is owned by another entity, or even when our systems can’t find much info about a source.” https://t.co/t2OnAVxeja
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 11, 2022
And Google is expanding content advisories based on the quality of the results: “We’re expanding content advisories to searches where our systems don’t have high confidence in the overall quality of the results available for the search.”
Check Barry’s post for more info: https://t.co/t2OnAVxeja
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 11, 2022
“our systems can now understand the notion of consensus, which is when multiple high-quality sources on the web all agree on the same fact. Our systems can check snippet callouts (…) against other high-quality sources on the web[…]” https://t.co/iaeJFS7FK3
— Pedro Dias (@pedrodias) August 11, 2022
The irresistible rising of MUM ⬇️⬇️ https://t.co/trHodHFwr6
— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) August 11, 2022
Google will be using MUM to improve featured snippets.
⭐️MUM understands the notion of consensus (several high quality sources agree)
⭐️Google now checks “snippet callouts” – the words bolded at the top of a f.s. against other high quality sources to see if there is consensus. pic.twitter.com/WBIH52rFZ7— Dr. Marie Haynes🐧 (@Marie_Haynes) August 11, 2022
As an added point of interest, the Quality Raters’ Guidelines mention the importance of aligning with expert consensus in a few places. pic.twitter.com/2JfVSfiJdL
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐧 (@Marie_Haynes) August 11, 2022
For questions where there is no answer, AI is helping Google decide when there should *not* be a featured snippet. pic.twitter.com/vJGQWK4Lsp
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐧 (@Marie_Haynes) August 11, 2022
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
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.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Core Update Flux, AdSense Ad Intent, California Link Tax & More
For the original iTunes version, click here.
The Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out, almost 6 weeks now, and we saw two shifts of ranking volatility, both mid-week and the weekend before. Google’s Danny Sullivan went on the defensive on search quality and forum listings in the search results. Google’s site reputation abuse spam policy will be fought both algorithmically and through manual actions. Google responded to The Verge mocking its search rankings over best printer. Google Search Console has a new unused ownership tokens page. Some sites may see the Google Indexing API work for a limited time on unsupported content types. And having two sites won’t result in your sites search ranking decline. BingBot now fully supports Brotli compression and will test Zstd compression soon. Google Search is testing thumbs-up and down buttons for product carousels. Google is testing new sitelinks designs. Google Notes on Search may not go away in May. Google Maps no longer supports draft reviews. Google Maps released a bunch of new maps, directions, travel and EV features. Google Ads Demand Gen campaigns now support AI image generation. Google Ads is testing a similar product carousel. Google Ads reminds advertisers that ad customizers are going away. Google Ads is testing a new horizontal ad card format. Google AdSense has these new ad intent formats. Google AdSense publishers are reporting lower RPM earnings since mid-February. Google threatens to drop links to California news publishers amongst link tax bill. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.
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Search Topics of Discussion:
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SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 19, 2024
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Google is testing more ad formats for its search ads. BingBot is testing new compression methods. Google said it is unlikely your rankings would drop just because you have two or more sites. Google says the indexing API might work for unsupported formats. Google said hyphenated domains are not bad by themselves. And I posted the weekly SEO video recap.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
-
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core Update Flux, AdSense Ad Intent, California Link Tax & More
The Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out, almost 6 weeks now, and we saw two shifts of ranking volatility, both mid-week and the weekend before. Google’s Danny Sullivan went on the defensive on search quality and forum listings… -
Google Tests More Google Ad Card Formats
Google is testing another ad format, another card like format, for its search ads. We previously saw the vertical and tall ad cards, then the carousel horizontal card format and now here are just plain horizontal ad cards. -
Google: It’s Unlikely Your Rankings Dropped Because You Have Two Websites
Google was asked if having two websites and Google finding out about them would cause the websites to drop in rankings. John Mueller from Google said that is “not likely,” adding that many people have several websites and that is fine. -
Google: Indexing API May Work For Unsupported Content But…
Gary Illyes from Google said in the recent Google SEO office hours the Google Indexing API may work for unsupported content formats, but that you shouldn’t be “surprised if suddenly it stopped working for unsupported verticals overnight.” -
Google: Are Hyphenated Domains Are Bad For Google Ranking?
The topic of using hyphens in domain names is one of the oldest SEO topics we have in this space. Heck, in 2004, SEOs said there was a specific Google ranking algorithm that filtered out domains with hyphens in them (Google did not by the way). -
Bingbot To Test Zstd Compression After Fully Gaining Full Brotli Compression
Fabrice Canel from Microsoft announced that BingBot now fully supports Brotli compression and will soon be testing zstd Zstandard compression, a lossless data compression, for its crawler. -
Google Cloud Socks
Google loves to print socks for its various swag and here are two variations of socks from the Google Cloud team. I like the white socks because they look more retro but here are nicer versions as well.
Other Great Search Threads:
- From a practical POV, you can specify your prices using structured data on the page, with a merchant center feed (which many ecommerce systems can make for you) or manually in merchant center., John Mueller on X
- I passed this on. I don’t think there’s anything special going on here, but the feedback on this being confusing is good to pass on., John Mueller on X
- If you have older reports that are still helpful, you’ll just need to click the View “button” and access ones you want to remain active., AdsLiaison on X
- The way I see this is more that there are things which can be recognized & ignored, but a site might still be appropriate to show (I don’t know this site/query). Folks get bad SEO advice, and if that can be neutralized granularly without broader effects, , John Mueller on X
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
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