SEARCHENGINES
Publishers Concerned With AI Powered Search From Google & Bing
It is somewhat satisfying to see non-SEOs dig deeper into how search is changing at Google and Bing and to hear the concerns they have about these changes. We covered your concerns as SEOs and publishers a week ago but now the big publishers are voicing their concerns around AI-search and what it means for publishers.
To catch you all up, Google announced Bard which showed screenshots of a ChatGPT like interface in search which had zero links or citations to publishers. The Microsoft Bing AI announcement was much more thought-out and had links to publishers, ads and so on.
But what the big publishers are concerned about is that there will be less of a need for searchers to click on those links than they had in the past. It is a similar concern we had with featured snippets and then the head of search at Google, Amit Signhal, said publishers are the corkscrew and Google is the swiss army knife after Danny Sullivan called Google the biggest scraper and shared the concern publishers have about searchers not needing the 10 blue links anymore. But AI chat takes this to a whole new level, a whole new level.
Wired wrote, “web users spend more time with bots and less time clicking links, publishers could be cut off from sales of subscriptions, ads, and referrals.” “When asked at Microsoft’s media event this week about the new Bing search potentially plagiarizing the work of human writers, the company’s consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi said the company “cares a bunch about being able to drive traffic back to content creators.” The links the Bing chatbot includes at the end of each response, he said, are meant to “make it easy for people to go in and click through to those sites.” Roulston of Microsoft declined to share information about how many early testers were clicking through those citation links to visit the information’s source,” Wired added.
The Verge wrote up the concern after the video interview Nilay Patel had with Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella. You should read or watch the interview, I’ll embed it below, but Glenn Gabe highlighted some of this in his tweets:
Some VERY important points regarding SEO, providing links to publishers, etc. Great to hear from @satyanadella -> Q&A with Satya Nadella on Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI, using AI to improve search as a product, competition with Google, and more https://t.co/JvhA2qPFAJ pic.twitter.com/m55sORYZgi
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 9, 2023
And: “On the search side, I’m very, very clear. The search category is about fair use so that we can generate traffic back to publishers. Our bots are not going to be allowed to crawl search if we are not driving traffic. So therefore, that, I think, is the core of the category.” pic.twitter.com/iBYi5kuw1X
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 9, 2023
And Marques Brownlee discussed it on his podcast as well, they even go through the concept of if publishers stop getting traffic from search and they cannot earn money on the content they produce – they will stop producing the content and the AI models will have nothing new to work with to train their models to give answers.
This just reminds me of all the featured snippet debate from almost a decade ago.
Looking back, SEOs would most rather prefer to have a featured snippet than not. Google even said they result in more traffic and not less but refuse to release data to publishers proving that. It is the whole zero click debate that Google disputes without any evidence.
None of this is new for most of the readers here, but to hear big publishers, big content creators be really concerned about this, is interesting and exciting.
Don’t get me wrong, I know both Microsoft and Google are thinking up ways to try to keep the overall ecosystem going with these new AI chat features baked into search. And I totally suspect there will be a lot of trial and error, a lot of change over the years. But I also believe that Google and Bing understand that they need content to be produced and won’t go too far to cause publishers to stop publishing.
But time will tell…
I also tweeted this morning about the irony of SEOs diving into generating content using AI (which Google is okay with) and them also complaining about the search engines using AI. Click through to see the responses to that tweet:
Somewhat ironic that SEOs were all into using AI to mass produce content, now that Google and Bing announce their AI content efforts, it is unfair. I like to just sit back and watch…
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) February 13, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Core Update Volatility, Helpful Content Update Gone, Dangerous Google Search Results & Google Ads Confusion
For the original iTunes version, click here.
This week, we covered that the Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out 38 days later, but we saw more volatility this week. Just a reminder that the Google helpful content update no longer exists. Gary Illyes from Google again says core update and indexing are independent. Google responded to complaints about dangerous and harmful search results. Google says ranking well in other verticals like shopping, images and others, does not negatively impact your web rankings. Google updated its structured data carousels beta documentation. Google says don’t disallow your internal footer links. Google says there are minimal differences between using a 404 and 410 status code. Google is testing short videos in the search bar. Google is not removing the site command. Bing is testing removing the cache link and the estimated number of search results. Google SGE is testing AI overview tabs. Bing is testing sources across the web AI. Google image search now has pixel-level object segmentation. Google Ad strength is not used in the auction, Google says. Google is testing sticky sponsored labels. Google Ads is also testing people also considered labels in the search ads. Google Ads tests “get phone number” buttons instead of the “call” button. Google released its Merchant Center product data specifications for 2024. Google Maps has a new flow for suggest an edit. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.
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SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 12, 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 says indexing systems and algorithm update systems are independent and don’t impact each other. Google clarified its structured data carousel beta to add feature availability and where the markup goes. Google says ranking well in product results, images, etc does not impact how well you rank in web search. Google is testing mentioned in section within the knowledge panels. Google Maps updated its suggest an edit workflow. We have a recap of the Google Search Central Live event in Romania from Mihai. And I posted the weekly SEO video recap.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
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Google: Indexing & Algorithm Updates Are Independent
Google once again said that its indexing systems are completely independent of its ranking updates, like the core update. Gary Illyes from Google said indexing, canonicalization, and those types of “systems are independent” of core updates. -
Google Structured Data Carousels Beta Docs Clarifies Feature Availability & Markup Location
Google has made some changes to its new Structured data carousels (beta) documentation to list the feature availability of this carousel and also to clarify where to place the markup. Google wrote the “markup must be on the summary page, and you don’t need to add markup to the detail pages in order to be eligible for this feature.” -
Google: Ranking In Shopping, Images & Other Verticals Doesn’t Hurt Your Web Rankings
John Mueller from Google said that ranking well in the Google Shopping or Google Image vertical boxes does not impact your ranking in the core web results. He said, “I can’t imagine that they’d be connected” when asked about how ranking well in the Merchant Center results can impact the web results. -
Google Knowledge Panels – Mentioned People
Google is testing a “mentioned” button that shows other people mentioned in the knowledge panels in the Google Search results. We saw variations of “mentioned by” in Google Discover and Explore but now we are seeing something similar in knowledge panels. -
Google Maps Suggest An Edit Flow Updated
Google has updated the Suggest an edit feature within Google Maps business listings. Google said the new flow is “easier” and should help make updates to the Google Maps data. -
Recap of Google’s Search Central Live Romania 2024
Last week marked the first-ever official Google SEO-focused event in Romania ‘” Search Central Live Romania ‘” on a sunny 4th of April in Bucharest. As a Search Central Product Expert who lives in Bucharest, the event made for an exciting occasion for people from my local SEO community to listen to and interact directly with Googlers… -
Google Bowling Alley Is Still There
Google has had its very own bowling alley at the GooglePlex, the main Google headquarters in Mountain View, California for well over a decade now and guess what, it is still there. Here is a recent photo I found on Instagram of some Googlers bowling at that alley. -
Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core Update Volatility, Helpful Content Update Gone, Dangerous Google Search Results & Google Ads Confusion
This week, we covered that the Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out 38 days later, but we saw more volatility this week. Just a reminder that the Google helpful content update no longer exists. Gary Illyes from…
Other Great Search Threads:
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
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Industry & Business
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SEO
PPC
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SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Results Can Be Harmful & Dangerous In Some Cases
Over the past few weeks, Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, has been replying to complaints about some examples of search results being not just low-quality but also potentially harmful and dangerous. The sad part to me is that a couple of years ago, this was not the case with the Google search results (for the most part).
When I interviewed Hyung-Jin Kim, the Vice President of Google Search, at SMX a couple of years back, he told a touching story about this topic. He explained that a family member of his was going through a medical issue and that he went to Google Search to find answers. As a VP of Google Search, his goal was to make sure that the Google Search results never led anyone to information that can end up hurting that searcher. That is where EEAT came from, partially, to ensure the search results did no harm and were not dangerous.
Now, we have way too many complaints about the Google search results offering up dangerous and harmful results. Google has responded to some of those saying they are taking in the feedback and will do better in the future. A lot of it stems from Google showing more Reddit results because they say searchers seek it out. But as Steve Jobs use to say, “Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do.”
Danny Sullivan wrote, “Appreciate the feedback. Aware of these concerns. Have passed them on. Have been talking with the team about them.”
Here are some examples, some we shared before, of Google responding to some of these examples:
That unit appears automatically if the systems think it might be relevant and useful. I’s not like someone said “put it first for that particular query” — which I know you understand, but others reading this might not. That said, I can appreciate the concern and issue, and I’ve…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) April 3, 2024
I did understand that point and concern. I didn’t say “because users all seem to like something, we show it regardless of relevancy.” But let me take a swing at some of those points again:
1) We want to ensure that *any* content we show in results — including forum content –…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) April 3, 2024
I sort of thought this:
“As with any change to our ranking systems, nothing is perfect. There will be issues that come up, as I talked about in the past: https://t.co/urIBxL3gcQ… So our goal will be to keep improving things forward, and constructive feedback like this is…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) April 4, 2024
That’s not what I said. I said we show forum content *at times* because users can find forum content to be useful, which is a fairly reasonable thing. People do find forum content useful.
That doesn’t mean it’s always useful, which is also why we don’t always show forum content.…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) April 4, 2024
Great to know that Reddit, Quora, and a 3-year-old Avvo thread are “better” results for this legal query than the American Bar Association 🤦♀️
Makes it even better that the top answer on one of the Reddit threads is from someone with an 18+ profile with some answers so gross I… pic.twitter.com/5x4DR5T4CZ
— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) April 8, 2024
Appreciate the feedback. Aware of these concerns. Have passed them on. Have been talking with the team about them. Here’s some of what I’ve shared on this:https://t.co/9DpdWyDp4Ahttps://t.co/SRGGWu5dXxhttps://t.co/FUJen9R6Oahttps://t.co/Fsd4XP8ti5
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) April 9, 2024
Yeah, why is this affecting *so* many university sites? Any hackers/spammers care to chime in here? 😅 https://t.co/4UKmoFM5qz
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) April 10, 2024
Example of unhelpful results pic.twitter.com/uiycU8xIPh
— AI Digital Marketing (@AiDigitalMktg) April 8, 2024
I really don’t think the forum results are what anyone wants.
The 1st result I get is this nonsense (see image)
Aside from the fact that most ppl will see this and ask “why the hell is the 1st thing I see – this is crap” it’s dangerous.
Kids with eating disorders should not… pic.twitter.com/nn6Mmf4uVa
— Mordy Oberstein *Mistakes Happen* (@MordyOberstein) April 7, 2024
It is actually something we spoke about a bit on our daily recap video (a new series) yesterday.
Maybe Google needs to show this warning more often these days when Reddit shows up as Higman points out:
While Google continues to say search quality is better and unhelpful content will be reduced by 40% or so, while also promising quality improvements time and time again – most SEOs don’t expect much change.
I analysed the top-ranking sites for 1,000 health symptom keywords — many covering serious concerns.
The most prominent domain Google ranks is Mayoclinic.
The second most prominent is Quora, where it’s easy to find spammed, copied or AI-generated medical advice.
For instance,… pic.twitter.com/SbFaG6gEud
— Glen Allsopp 👾 (@ViperChill) April 11, 2024
I didn’t embed a ton of examples but I do expect Google to work on this issue and for this to be a thing of the past at some point… I hope…
Forum discussion at X.
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