The Quality of Search Results on Google is Getting Worse and Worse
Research shows that search results on Google and Bing are increasingly going down due to junk content that websites create to optimize SEO.
The research was conducted by a team of computer scientists from Leipzig University, Bauhaus University Weimar and the Center for Expanded Data Analytics and AI in Germany on three popular search engines: Google Search, Bing Search and DuckDuckGo .
“The majority of product reviews that rank highly on search results pages use affiliate marketing and a significant amount of SEO spam,” a research team representative said on 404 Media.
Affiliate Marketing is a term that is no longer unfamiliar today. One of the ways most websites make money is by reviewing and summarizing products. Articles on this topic will have links attached and if the user clicks or purchases from this link, the website will receive a certain amount of money.
Reputable websites often have strict controls, but many other sites try to find ways to get users to click on as many links as possible, even using click bait to optimize profits. To attract more attention, these websites also use tricks to make search results appear higher on Google, also known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
The research team analyzed 7,392 product review search terms over the course of a year on Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo. As a result, the highest-ranking websites are the ones that are the most SEO optimized. They have more attached affiliate links, while the text content is low quality.
“SEO is a constant battle and we find that websites specializing in content spam are at the top of every search,” the research team’s report stated.
According to Gizmodo, in fact, Google and the companies that operate search engines do not want this to happen. They continuously introduced adjustment algorithms to repel, but it was ineffective. “Change only brings temporary positive effects. Search engines seem to have lost the cat and mouse game with SEO spam,” according to the research team.
Lily Ray, Director of SEO at advertising agency Amsive Digital, agrees with the study’s conclusions. She believes that the SEO community in general is realizing that Google is trying to solve the problem but not as aggressively as before. “It felt like someone was sleeping at the wheel,” Ray told Gizmodo. “We have never seen Google in a situation like this.”
Meanwhile, Google believes that the research does not show the full picture of Google Search performance. “This study took a limited look at product review content. It does not reflect the overall quality or usefulness of the tool for the billions of queries we handle every day,” representative “We’ve made specific improvements to address the issue,” Google said.
Bing and DuckDuckGo have not yet commented.
In 2021, Google Search also reflects increasingly worse search results due to being dominated by advertising instead of neutral display as before. According to Telegraph, the ad tool appears a lot, even appears at the top and looks like a normal return result.
“Money is driving Google search results. You don’t always find the content you want at the top of the page. It’s no longer a level playing field,” said Charlotte Sheridan, Director of the Small Biz Institute, company specializing in promoting brands on Google and social networks, said at the time.
