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Expansion, Machine Learning & Core Updates

Published

2 years ago

January 18, 2022

Expansion, Machine Learning & Core Updates

Google’s John Mueller was asked a series of questions around the product reviews update on last Friday’s video hangout. In short, it will expand to other languages and countries, it probably does use machine learning and eventually it might be incorporated into the larger core updates.

As a reminder, we had two product reviews updates in 2021, one in April 2021 and the other in December 2021.

These series of questions came up at the 46:21 mark in this video, here it is if you want to play it, otherwise the transcript is below:

Expanding The Product Reviews Update

John basically said Google does plan to expand the product reviews update beyond just English, as we covered before – but he has no timeline for when that might happen.

Here is what was said:

AUDIENCE: So I have a few questions about product reviews, which is my domain. So I noticed that recently you made some moves in the US to promote product reviews, where there were real testing instead of just comparison. Do you have any time estimates of when we could expect these upgrades to be, like, in the market stack in French or German?

JOHN MUELLER: I don’t know, with most things, it’s something, where we tend not to pre-announce them. So it’s hard to kind of say ahead of time. And for some of these updates, the team moves very fast in kind of, like, rolling things out globally. And for other types of updates, it’s very slow. And sometimes there are also policy and legal reasons kind of that make things a little bit harder. So it’s always very tricky to give an estimate.

Re: the Product Reviews Update expanding to other languages Via @johnmu: We have nothing to pre-announce. For some updates, the team works fast to roll things out to other languages. For others, it’s slower. Policy/legal reasons can also impact things: https://t.co/RRk1Q67bzW pic.twitter.com/KTisK4pWDr
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) January 16, 2022

Machine Learning & Product Reviews Update

Then he was asked if the product reviews update uses human input or machine learning? John basically said no to human input but likely to machine learning. John said this takes an “algorithmic approach” and not a human editing approach, like most of what Google does. He isn’t sure if this specific update uses machine learning, but he said it probably does “to some extent.”

Here is what was said:

AUDIENCE: I’m curious to just learn a little more in general how could Google train, like, an algorithm to understand where there were real testing or not. Is it machine learning, or is it also human reviewers?

JOHN MUELLER: For Search, for these kind of general ranking updates, it’s not something, where we would have human reviewers in the loop, because there’s just so much content out there. We can’t review it all. And a lot of times, we also don’t have a clear yes or no understanding, where someone can go through a website and say, oh, this page is good. This page is bad. It’s just not scalable.

So these are all essentially algorithmic approaches that we take. And we do use a lot of machine learning. Whether we use that for this particular update, I don’t know. My guess is probably also, at least to some extent. But it’s hard to say which exact technology was used for which update.

More: Is Google using machine learning to train algos for the PRU? Via @johnmu: For updates like this, it’s not something where human reviewers would be in the loop. And we do use a lot of machine learning overall, so it’s probably used to some extent: https://t.co/7wx6l8IPw5 pic.twitter.com/0GFLS92Rwv
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) January 16, 2022

Core Updates & Product Reviews Update

Finally, he asked if eventually will the product reviews update be incorporated into the core update like some other algorithms have been in the past. John said maybe, it depends on a lot of things. He said it also depends on how you define core algorithms.

This is what was said:

AUDIENCE: OK, and do you plan to integrate this kind of understanding of a web page into the core Google algorithm?

JOHN MUELLER: I mean, it’s always tricky to define what is a part of the core update– the core algorithm. So I don’t think I have an answer for that. Because usually, what happens is when we see that some algorithm is working really well, then we’ll kind of like just keep using that for a longer period of time. And at some point, you could say, well, it’s a part of the core algorithm, even if it’s not in a file that is called Core Algorithm or something like that.

And more: Will the PRU be baked into Google’s core ranking algo? Via @johnmu: It’s tricky to define the “core algo”. If an algorithm works very well, we might continue using it for a long time. So you could say it’s part of the “core algo” at that point https://t.co/TXPnwJmGny pic.twitter.com/j6AjNpgakA
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) January 16, 2022

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Related Topics:core Expansion learning Machine Updates

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Google Won’t Change The 301 Signals For Ranking & SEO

Published

13 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

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.

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Google Again Says Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages

Published

2 days ago

April 23, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

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
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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.

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Google Needs Very Few Links To Rank Pages; Links Are Less Important

Published

3 days ago

April 22, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

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.

Forum discussion at X and image credit to @n_minkov.