Many people have an incredibly low bar for “great” content that deserves to rank in Google search.
I often see people lamenting the fact that their content is nice and high quality. They can't understand why they aren't ranked. But inevitably, when you go to see that great content, it's often sub-par at best.
The problem is that everyone who creates substandard content (and website experiences) doesn't recognize this reality. They all think their content is great and of high quality.
But that's not the case. However, that is not the case. They just can't admit that their content baby is ugly.
Truly great content is rare.
It doesn't matter whether it was generated by AI or humans. AI tools can write crap. But humans have been mastering the art and science of mundane content creation for much longer.
The web is full of generic content. Just because you think it's quality content doesn't mean people or Google will think so.
Google, the cesspool, and the brand
The web is a cesspool. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said this in 2008.
And Google, despite its best efforts, still hasn't really figured it out, years later.
Google's solution was branding. That's why we've been getting so many complaints lately (none of which are actually new, but they may be new to you):
Who is responsible for Google's search quality?
There's a never-ending circular debate here, a chicken-and-egg kind of thing.
Content was the priority. Then Google. But now, Google has become a search monopoly and can send out a lot of incredibly valuable search traffic, or very little, or none at all. SEO can be feast or famine.
Google definitely bears some of the blame. (If you haven't read AJ Kohn's great article “It's Goog Enough!”, I highly recommend reading it to fully unravel some of the big issues with Google's search experience. ) Google is also influencing this issue indirectly, as it makes it easy for websites to monetize their content. Through advertising programs such as Google's AdSense.
So people basically copy or imitate the kind of mediocre content that Google ranks for a particular query in hopes of outperforming what it's ranking for, but in any case , often not so great.
When you increase this to a large scale, you end up with a garbage mountain of content that Google has to understand and rank.
So Google does Google and goes back to what Google knows. In other words, when in doubt, rank branded content.
But what about content creators? They too have some responsibility.
In 2022, before ChatGPT and generated AI were available to everyone and flooded the web with even more low-quality, spammy content, we published “Is Google Search Getting Worse?” did. Former Google employee Marissa Mayer said she thinks “the quality of the internet has taken a hit.”
- “When you see the quality of search results decreasing, it’s natural to blame Google and think, ‘Why is it getting worse?’” To me, a more interesting and sophisticated thought is, “Wait a minute. But Google is just a window to the web.” The real question is why is the web getting worse? ”
By the way, the Google search quality crisis is nothing new. Jeez.
Former Search Engine Land editor Danny Sullivan (now Google Search Liaison) explains this brilliantly in his 2017 article, “Details of Google's Biggest Search Quality Crisis in History,” so I won't rehash it all. .
In addition to discussing the flood of fake news and questionable content at the time, it also touches on Google's long history of other challenges when its search results became the “worst ever” – ranking higher. Search results from Google Panda's algorithm updated about 13 years ago, including the rise of low-quality content farms.
Let's be real. Both Google and the content creator may bear some responsibility here.
The searcher, on the other hand, loses.
How should Google rank mediocre content?
HouseFresh published a great attack on Google two days ago, “How Google is Killing Independent Sites Like Us.” Today I decided to take a look at some of the “high quality content” that HouseFresh publishes. Not as a thorough analyzer of SEO issues, but simply as a content consumer and product searcher.
The randomly chosen title of my first article is: 5 best air purifiers for cigarette smoke we tested. Here's how to start your review:
Is it quality content? Does it help at all?When is it actually? review Are you planning to start?
This opening sentence is painfully general. Do you start your product reviews with “He’s the only guy passing by smoking a cigarette”? Is that your hook? Really?
Why do I have to read bad book reviews before I get to the real purpose: book reviews? This is the same approach to bland content that has caused so many people to despise recipe blogs. It's the same type.
But it turns out that this common writing habit isn't unique to HouseFresh at all. I was curious, so I looked into what kind of content ranks on Google search. [best air purifiers for cigarette smoke]? Here's what I saw:
Good housekeeping in position 1:
Compared to the others ranked in the organic top 10, this one seems to be the best. The intro could be a little shorter (or tightened up a bit for the overall review), but overall it provides a content experience. No complaints about this being in position 1.
Things go downhill from here.
#2 Better Homes and Gardens:
This isn't bad or unpleasant, but it's especially unhelpful as a searcher in buying mode. There is no need for such a preface. Can we get to the point? I came here to review and there are a few paragraphs of general text that are not important and I don't want to have to scroll through them or just leave them as they are because they are annoying.
Of course, Google's SERPs wouldn't be complete without #7 from Forbes, the absolutely respected authority on air purifiers (and just about everything else, according to Google).
The intro doesn't mention cigarette smoke, but the only mention of it comes much later in the section explaining how we choose the best air purifiers (“In wildfires”). It's no secret that we inhale smoke, whether that's cigarettes…'').
(All kidding aside, Forbes magazine once complained loudly about Google's unfairness. Look now.)
And if you dig deeper into some retail content (Amazon, Best Buy, etc.), you'll find the opposite of a hidden gem, painfully bad content at #9 on Blue Air.
just. oh. It's so bad. Thanks for the unrelated history lesson, I needed a nap.
Look, this is just one query. It's easy to spend hours finding endless queries and examples across industries. But we all know that the results are similar.
Google is a baby walking on a content garbage mountain
The featured image I used in this article is the best metaphor I could come up with. Google is the baby of a content landfill that is running out of space.
We keep repeating that people copy boring content, expect it to rank because it's successful, because that's how Google ranks, and get frustrated when that content fails. It seems like you're stuck in a cycle.
To me, the solution is obvious, but not easy.
Become a convenient and reliable brand. This is not an easy process.
So, play the “long game” with SEO, expect Google to rank your content, and stop complaining when it doesn’t.
Create better content that is legitimately useful to people. Continue to improve all aspects of SEO.
Content creators need to improve. But so is Google.
Meanwhile, Google is hinting that change is coming. In November, Google advised us to “buckle up.” The company repeated this in January. And again in February.
History shows that when Google faces an onslaught of criticism regarding the quality of its search, it tends to respond. The big question remains: when will that happen?