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On October 29, 2024, Google hosted the Google Web Creator Conversation Event at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Google invited some independent site owners who were affected by recent updates.
While they didn’t share much information (as always) and some people who attended it call it “a funeral”, I think the most important part was overlooked by the industry-leading media sites and newsletters.
I want to highlight and share my thoughts about this overlooked but crucial thing in this write-up.
Overlooked point
It’s been more than a week since this event, and I barely noticed anything good in the media about it.
Probably because the event was called “a funeral” by some attendees, so people didn’t pay much attention to details as the summary was already in the title of a few articles, and Google mostly didn’t share anything valuable (except for 1 thing).
I read a post written by Joshua Tyler (this one) 2 days ago where he mentioned that a point “diversity of results” was erased from the top of the whiteboard and rewritten at the bottom while he was on a break.
Source: https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/tech/google-creators-event.html
I think it’s a very important point that everyone involved in SEO and Marketing overall should understand.
I noticed this almost 3 months ago, which I explained in this article. If you haven’t read it, you definitely have to.
So, Google wants different page types to be in SERP.
Why?
Compared to AI chatbots like ChatGPT, which provide you with a direct answer to your question, Google’s SERP has more real estate as it provides 10 blue links and AI overviews.
They want to be the place for research and navigation purposes as direct answers they give you with AI Overviews.
By offering a variety of content types (e.g., blog articles, videos, user-generated content such as Reddit & Quora, apps, etc) on 1 page, Google increases the likelihood that users will find the information they seek. This improves user satisfaction and encourages continued use of Google.
Also, by offering fewer spots in the SERP to blog articles, Google reduces the influence of SEOs on SERP as it leaves fewer spots for blog posts which they have full control of on their websites.
Ranking forum and Reddit threads is a different game as SEOs need to overcome forum spam filters first, and even if they do, they don’t have control over the website, so Reddit, Quora, or any other forum can easily remove any thread.
In addition to different page types in SERP, I think Google wants to have different page structures and content in blog posts too.
What does it mean for SEO specialists and Marketers
Even in 2022, we mostly had 9-10 out of 10 spots in SERP occupied by blog posts for most informational and commercial keywords that were very similar to each other.
Right now, depending on the keyword, niche and country, we have 2-4 spots occupied by apps, forums, extensions and other types of websites.
It means a few things:
1. Blog articles compete with other blog articles in SERP.
If you want to get traffic from Google to your blog posts, it’s much more difficult than it was 2 years ago as you have fewer spots in SERP. Some are reserved for apps, forums, extensions and other types of websites.
2. Aim for different types of websites and different blog post structures/layouts.
In order to get traffic from Google, you don’t necessarily need to become a blog and produce blog articles. Become a forum, e-commerce store, develop an app, etc., or a combination of a few, and you will have a good chance of getting traffic from Google. Look at it from the page-level perspective, not only sitewide.
If you want to compete with blog posts, make them look different from your competitors', ideally with unique information (if possible).
Future perspective
Google probably defines types of pages and categorizes them before ranking. This is how they can force to have diversity in SERP as blog posts are mostly similar to each other.
But it’s not just about different types of pages.
Later, when their AI becomes more advanced, they will be checking the diversity in blog posts - page structure, content structure, layout, etc.
They are likely trying to do it with Helpful Content Updates (HCU) but are less successful than they probably want.
However, they will continue doing it.
If you haven’t read my article on recovering from HCU, here is the link - https://alexsavy.notion.site/Helpful-Content-Update-Recovery-6389032c0a6f4b43b6daa93e9ba9814c?pvs=4
Conclusion
This leads to the conclusion - be different from as many perspectives as you can on a page and sitewide levels.
When doing your niche research, aim for understanding what every competitor is doing and create totally different pages.
Create different page structures and different user experiences.
Regular blog articles with written content and pictures similar to most other pages will have hard time getting a lot of traffic unless they are published on very reputable websites.
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