Google announced today that it will be rolling out new updates to search over the next few weeks, aimed at making it easier for people to find quality content. The new Ranking improvements will help reduce the amount of low-quality or unoriginal content that ranks high in search results. Google says the update specifically targets content created primarily for search engine rankings, so-called “SEO-first” content, rather than human-first content.
The company’s tests have shown that the update will improve the results that users find when searching for content such as online educational materials, as well as arts and entertainment, shopping and technology-related content.
“If you’re looking for information about a new movie, you may have previously come across articles that summarized reviews from other sites without adding perspective beyond what’s available elsewhere on the web,” the company explained in a blog post . “This isn’t very helpful if you’re expecting to read something new. With this update, you’ll see more results with unique information, making you more likely to read something you’ve never seen before.”
The new updates should help reduce the number of low-quality results from sites that have learned to play the system with content optimized to rank high in search results. Google says users should start seeing content that is actually useful and rank higher in search results. The company plans to refine its systems and build on these improvements over time.
The rollout of the new improvements came as Google recently confirmed that TikTok is restricting its search product. Senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan, who heads Google’s knowledge and information organization, recently noted that younger users are often turning to apps like Instagram and TikTok for discovery purposes, rather than Google Search or Google Maps. For example, Raghavan said nearly 40% of young people turn to TikTok or Instagram when looking for a place to eat, as opposed to Google Maps or search.
TikTok already seems poised to capitalize on this as it tests a new feature that improves the popular short-form video app’s search capabilities, so it makes sense for Google to work on improving its search engine. With these upcoming ranking improvements, Google is likely trying to regain user trust when it comes to serving relevant and quality results.
Along with announcing improvements in search engine rankings, Google has also announced that it will be releasing an update in the coming weeks to make it easier to find quality and original reviews. The company began working on it last year by rolling out a series of updates designed to show more helpful and detailed reviews in search results, and upcoming updates will build on those efforts.
Product review videos are a notable part of TikTok, so it’s not surprising that Google is working to post higher-quality reviews on its search results page to ensure people come to its platform for reviews, as opposed to social media. If Google is able to give users quality reviews on the first page of its search results, people may be less likely to turn to TikTok for reviews.
Today’s announcement comes as Google recently announced that it is working to improve featured snippets, which are the small, bite-sized results that the search engine packages and delivers to the top of the page for many searches. Last week, the company announced that it was rolling out an update that will improve the responses people see in these info boxes. According to Google, a new AI model called the “Multitask Unified Model” empowers its search ranking system to verify its own work in some way. The AI model achieves this by comparing the top bold text portion of a search snippet result to established high-quality search results to see if they say the same thing, even if they say it with different wording.