Can Google Beat Its Own Content Machine?

Can Google Beat Its Own Content Machine?

Can Google put the genie back in the bottle?

The almighty Google algorithm has helped writers build an audience by creating more relevant and useful content. It has also unintentionally?given rise to a generation of people and businesses who write for the hungry machine known as the Google search engine. Google’s new algorithm update will target content whose sole purpose is to rank on Google as opposed to providing valuable information that people want to read.?

According to Google, its “helpful content update” (yes, that is what it is called) will ensure “people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.” As Google wrote in a post, “Our advice about having a people-first approach does not invalidate following SEO best practices, such as those covered in?Google's own SEO guide. SEO is a helpful activity when it's applied to people-first content. However, content created primarily for search engine traffic is strongly correlated with content that searchers find unsatisfying.”?

Notably, Google stresses creating content that adds your own perspective:?“For example, if you search for information about a new movie, you might have previously seen articles that aggregated reviews from other sites without adding perspectives beyond what’s available elsewhere. This isn’t very helpful if you’re expecting to read something new. With this update, you’ll see more results with unique, authentic information, so you’re more likely to read something you haven't seen before.”

Google?offers several tips?for writing “people-first content.” For instance, content writers should ask these and many more questions:

  • Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines, rather than made for humans?
  • Are you producing lots of content on different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results?
  • Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?
  • Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value?

Yes, that’s right: people writing useful content for people is now a thing.

You might well ask, How did we get to a point where we need an algorithm update to prompt people to write for people? Well, technically Google never encouraged anyone to write for machines; Google has always encouraged content creators to write for people who are searching for content. The company’s?Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines?rate content pages based on expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness:?

  • The?expertise?of the creator of the content.
  • The?authoritativeness?of the creator of the content, the content itself, and the website.
  • The?trustworthiness?of the creator of the content, the content itself, and the website.

Google’s power and influence over the years -- it’s easily the most popular search engine in the world -- has just about single-handedly inspired the rise of search optimization (SEO). People who practice effective SEO improve content by helping writers identify interesting and relevant topics that live at the sweet intersection between a writer’s area of expertise and what their audience is interested in reading based on input such as search trends. Then an effective SEO expert will help the writer ensure that their content builds expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, which are important to both creating compelling content but also to building an audience.

But?Google’s enormous power has also resulted in people and business trying to game the system with bad SEO practices designed to make their sites rank well in Google search results. A “feed the machine” mentality has taken hold, with “How can we achieve a top ranking?” too often becoming the primary focus of creating content instead of “How can we create great content for other people and businesses and build an audience?”

Now the machine is encouraging to do something fundamental to our existence: communicate with each other.?

This is not Google’s first attempt to penalize poor-quality content. Previous algorithm updates, such as Panda and Penguin, have attempted to staunch the flow of bad SEO practices. The fact that Google needs another update?underscores the problem of humans and businesses continuing to focus their content creation efforts on pleasing search engines instead of helping people. Even worse, with the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) to create content, businesses are literally turning to machines to do the job of people.?

It’s interesting that one of the questions Google suggests writers to ask is “Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?” At a time when AI is getting better at writing like humans, will Google’s own AI engines know how to spot the use of extensive automation??Google will need to develop a smarter criminal mindset in order to detect crimes against writing.

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