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Hello from Google! I work for our search ranking team. Sadly, we can't control publishers who do things that we do not advise and do not recommend. We have no

Hello from Google! I work for our search ranking team. Sadly, we can't control publishers who do things that we do not advise and do not recommend. We have no guidance telling publishers to get rid of "old" content. That's not something we've said. I shared this week that it is not something we recommend: https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1689018769782476800 https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1689018769782476800 This also documents the many times over the years we've also pushed back on this myth: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-dont-delete-older-helpful-content-35846.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-dont-delete-older-helpfu...

Capricorn2481 3y ago
It doesn't matter if your guidance discourages it, your SEO algorithm is encouraging it. What you call "helpful" in your post is what is financially helpful to Google, not what's helpful to me. There's no denying Google encourages long rambling nonsense over direct information
- dannysullivan 3y ago
  No one has demonstrated getting rid of "old" content somehow makes the rest of the site "fresh" and therefore ranks better. What's likely the case is that some people have updated content to make it more useful -- more up-to-date -- and the content being more helpful might, in turn, perform better. That's a much different thing that "if you have a lot of old content, the entire site is somehow old." And if you read the CNET memo, you'll see there's a confusion with these points.
  - Capricorn2481 3y ago
    But there's the rub, you're not making content more helpful. You're making it longer and more useless so we have to scroll down more so Google can rake in more ads. The fact that you're calling it more "helpful" is insidious. That's why garbage SEO sites are king on the internet right now. It's the same thing you guys do with Youtube, where you decreased monetization for videos under a certain length. Now every content creator is encouraged to artificially inflate the length of their video for more ads. You're financially rewarding people for hiding information.
    - dannysullivan 3y ago
      This is our guidance about how people should see themselves to create helpful content to succeed in Google Search: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creat... That includes self-assessment questions, including this: "Are you writing to a particular word count because you've heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don't.)" That's not telling people to write longer. Our systems are not designed to reward that. And we'll keep working to improve them.
TheKarateKid 3y ago
Are the employees at Google working on Search aware of how bad search results have become in the past year or two? Literally almost everyone I know, inside and outside of tech, has noticed a significant downgrade in quality from Google search results. And a lot of it is due to artificially inflated SEO techniques.
- dannysullivan 3y ago
  We've been diligently working to improve the results through things like our helpful content system, and that work is continuing. You can read about some of it in a recent post here (and it also describes the Perspectives feature that's live on mobile): https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-perspectives/ https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-perspectiv...
  - pohl 3y ago
    It's great that you responded to the question. Is there a reason you didn't answer it, though?
    - lampshades 3y ago
      Because politics, not solutions, drive big tech.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - wmeredith 3y ago
      > Are the employees at Google working on Search aware of how bad search results have become in the past year or two? I would assume they didn't answer this because the answer is either "No" because echo chamber or "Yes" but they don't want to say that publicly.
    - dannysullivan 3y ago
      "We've been diligently working to improve the results" was the response to the question of "Are the employees at Google working on Search aware of how bad search results have become in the past year or two?" I thought that was a clear response. To be more explicit, yes, we're aware that there are complaints about the quality of search results. That's why we've been working in a variety of ways, as I indicated, to improve those. We have continued to build our spam fighting systems, our core ranking systems, our systems to reward helpful content. We expanded our product reviews system to cover all types of reviews, as this explains: https://status.search.google.com/incidents/5XRfC46rorevFt8yN8iR https://status.search.google.com/incidents/5XRfC46rorevFt8yN... We regularly improve these systems, which we share about on this page: https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2Gw... The work isn't stopping. You'll continue to see us revise these systems to address some of the concerns people have raised.
awiejtrailw 3y ago
Facebook doesn't have guidance telling content creators to publish conspiracy theories, but their policies are willfully optimized to promote it. Take responsibility for the results of your actions like an adult.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > Take responsibility for the results of your actions like an adult. "your actions", give me a break. The parent commenter doesn't own Google, and you aren't forced to use the platform. Are people on this site really convinced that an L3 Google engineer can flick the "Fix Google" switch on the search engine?
  - lampshades 3y ago
    You said L3 so I was curious. I looked up the guy's LinkedIn [0] and honestly an L3 engineer would have a lot more context about Google's search. Danny, what do you even do? [0] https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannysullivan/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannysullivan/
    - dannysullivan 3y ago
      I work for our search quality team, directly reporting to the head of that team, to help explain how search works to people outside Google and bring concerns and feedback back into team so we can look at ways to improve. I came to the position about six years ago after retiring from writing about search engines as a journalist, explaining how they work to people from 1996 onward.
      - hashtag-til 3y ago
        That’s impressive! Congrats.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        So you're PR
jmount 3y ago
This is the usual if a hazard isn't labeled, it isn't a hazard fallacy.
CWuestefeld 3y ago
Making statements that you wish publishers wouldn't do various things, doesn't change the actual incentives that the real-world ranking algorithms create for them. I mean, saying that you should design pages for people rather than the search engine clearly hasn't shut down the SEO industry.

Capricorn2481 3y ago

It doesn't matter if your guidance discourages it, your SEO algorithm is encouraging it. What you call "helpful" in your post is what is financially helpful to Google, not what's helpful to me. There's no denying Google encourages long rambling nonsense over direct information

dannysullivan 3y ago
No one has demonstrated getting rid of "old" content somehow makes the rest of the site "fresh" and therefore ranks better. What's likely the case is that some people have updated content to make it more useful -- more up-to-date -- and the content being more helpful might, in turn, perform better. That's a much different thing that "if you have a lot of old content, the entire site is somehow old." And if you read the CNET memo, you'll see there's a confusion with these points.
- Capricorn2481 3y ago
  But there's the rub, you're not making content more helpful. You're making it longer and more useless so we have to scroll down more so Google can rake in more ads. The fact that you're calling it more "helpful" is insidious. That's why garbage SEO sites are king on the internet right now. It's the same thing you guys do with Youtube, where you decreased monetization for videos under a certain length. Now every content creator is encouraged to artificially inflate the length of their video for more ads. You're financially rewarding people for hiding information.
  - dannysullivan 3y ago
    This is our guidance about how people should see themselves to create helpful content to succeed in Google Search: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creat... That includes self-assessment questions, including this: "Are you writing to a particular word count because you've heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don't.)" That's not telling people to write longer. Our systems are not designed to reward that. And we'll keep working to improve them.

TheKarateKid 3y ago

Are the employees at Google working on Search aware of how bad search results have become in the past year or two? Literally almost everyone I know, inside and outside of tech, has noticed a significant downgrade in quality from Google search results. And a lot of it is due to artificially inflated SEO techniques.

dannysullivan 3y ago
We've been diligently working to improve the results through things like our helpful content system, and that work is continuing. You can read about some of it in a recent post here (and it also describes the Perspectives feature that's live on mobile): https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-perspectives/ https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-perspectiv...
- pohl 3y ago
  It's great that you responded to the question. Is there a reason you didn't answer it, though?
  - lampshades 3y ago
    Because politics, not solutions, drive big tech.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - wmeredith 3y ago
    > Are the employees at Google working on Search aware of how bad search results have become in the past year or two? I would assume they didn't answer this because the answer is either "No" because echo chamber or "Yes" but they don't want to say that publicly.
  - dannysullivan 3y ago
    "We've been diligently working to improve the results" was the response to the question of "Are the employees at Google working on Search aware of how bad search results have become in the past year or two?" I thought that was a clear response. To be more explicit, yes, we're aware that there are complaints about the quality of search results. That's why we've been working in a variety of ways, as I indicated, to improve those. We have continued to build our spam fighting systems, our core ranking systems, our systems to reward helpful content. We expanded our product reviews system to cover all types of reviews, as this explains: https://status.search.google.com/incidents/5XRfC46rorevFt8yN8iR https://status.search.google.com/incidents/5XRfC46rorevFt8yN... We regularly improve these systems, which we share about on this page: https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2GwMi/history https://status.search.google.com/products/rGHU1u87FJnkP6W2Gw... The work isn't stopping. You'll continue to see us revise these systems to address some of the concerns people have raised.

awiejtrailw 3y ago

Facebook doesn't have guidance telling content creators to publish conspiracy theories, but their policies are willfully optimized to promote it. Take responsibility for the results of your actions like an adult.

smoldesu 3y ago
> Take responsibility for the results of your actions like an adult. "your actions", give me a break. The parent commenter doesn't own Google, and you aren't forced to use the platform. Are people on this site really convinced that an L3 Google engineer can flick the "Fix Google" switch on the search engine?
- lampshades 3y ago
  You said L3 so I was curious. I looked up the guy's LinkedIn [0] and honestly an L3 engineer would have a lot more context about Google's search. Danny, what do you even do? [0] https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannysullivan/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannysullivan/
  - dannysullivan 3y ago
    I work for our search quality team, directly reporting to the head of that team, to help explain how search works to people outside Google and bring concerns and feedback back into team so we can look at ways to improve. I came to the position about six years ago after retiring from writing about search engines as a journalist, explaining how they work to people from 1996 onward.
    - hashtag-til 3y ago
      That’s impressive! Congrats.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      So you're PR

jmount 3y ago

This is the usual if a hazard isn't labeled, it isn't a hazard fallacy.

CWuestefeld 3y ago

Making statements that you wish publishers wouldn't do various things, doesn't change the actual incentives that the real-world ranking algorithms create for them. I mean, saying that you should design pages for people rather than the search engine clearly hasn't shut down the SEO industry.