Google's Matt Cutts: What To Expect In The Coming Months

[engine]

Google's Matt Cutts does a roundup of what webmasters and SEOs can expect in the coming months.

Here's the video.

[turbocharged]

We had a nice office discussion about Penguin 2.0 and other algo changes Google is likely to make later this year. I think most in our office, in one way or another, believe Google is trying to reign in referral traffic by making webmasters scared to link to other websites. By limiting links to other websites, people would be more likely to use a search product.

[ColourOfSpring]

I think most in our office, in one way or another, believe Google is trying to reign in referral traffic by making webmasters scared to link to other websites. By limiting links to other websites, people would be more likely to use a search product.

Interesting theory. Unlinking the web through fear - a search engine (Google) becomes the ultimate hub to find what you're looking for. It fits with my churn theory - Google's the best place to go if websites keep dying through lack of exposure. Less links, less evergreen content, perfect for Google.

[HuskyPup]

perfect for Google.

Even better for Bing:-)

[santapaws]

if i want a product i search amazon. Google seem determined to put all the information sites out of business. Amazon reviews are now my best friend.

[diberry]

Turbocharged, that makes a lot of sense and fits with the Knowledge Graph theory.

I am officially deciding to ignore Google from now on and do what makes sense for users, best practices, etc. Even on my sites that rank beautifully in Google, the volume of traffic is falling to where it's just not worth devoting time or effort to Google rankings. If Google doesn't want to rate content that does well with readers (frequently going viral), that's their prerogative and I just don't care anymore.

[turbocharged]

if i want a product i search amazon.

@santapaws

And this is what a lot of people do as well, myself included. The beauty of a search engine is that it can take this into account and provide users with a set of diversified results that omit the normal destinations that people already use. When Google gives Amazon, Wikipedia, YouTube, etc. all the top listings, with host crowding to boot, it really is a lost opportunity to please the advanced end user. What I see in the serps right now makes me want to search elsewhere, and I suspect these serps are training other users to do just that. Seriously, how many people have not heard of Amazon or shopped there? How many people want a definition of a product they are searching for? To me, Google is just regurgitating the same data that we know exists. The whole point of search is to find something somewhere that you don't already know about. Google is miserably failing in these regards.

@ColourOfSpring & diberry

It's amazing how a small group of designers can come up with some interesting theories. Some are far fetched, but others quite conceivable.

[rango]

I've switched to Yandex as my default for the time being. Loving their features and the results are more than satisfactory so far. I tried Bing previously and was disappointed, but so far Yandex is holding up well and is a very solid alternative.

And as a bonus it has no ads.

[backdraft7]

Google is trying to reign in referral traffic by making webmasters scared to link to other websites. By limiting links to other websites, people would be more likely to use a search product.

...and how is that NOT evil?

[rango]

Here's another way of looking at things, a bit more from Google's perspective.

They are losing traffic and mindshare to the big go-to sites like Yelp, Tripadvisor, Amazon, Stack Overflow, Wikipedia, Kayak and so on. As people are becoming more internet savvy, they are developing brand loyalties beyond Google and people are starting to bypass it entirely. This is clearly not in Google's interest.

As a result, Google as a company has little choice but to start providing the same services as these sites. So they need to add their own knowledge graph (vs Wikipedia), their own hotel reviews (vs Tripadvisor), their own restaurant reviews (vs Yelp), their own flight search (vs Kayak) and so on.

From an SEO's point of view, this is a double edged sword. It tends to mean organic listings drop. But you have to also consider this - would you rather people go directly to Tripadvisor to search for their hotel or would you rather them go to Google? SEOs are actually not served well by an internet landscape that sees people bypassing search engines entirely. It's actually in our best interest for Google's results and tools to be better than what these big sites are providing. Even if organic results are half way down the page, it's still better for us if it means people will continue to search on Google.

Just a different point of view.

[ColourOfSpring]

And this is what a lot of people do as well, myself included. The beauty of a search engine is that it can take this into account and provide users with a set of diversified results that omit the normal destinations that people already use. When Google gives Amazon, Wikipedia, YouTube, etc. all the top listings, with host crowding to boot, it really is a lost opportunity to please the advanced end user. What I see in the serps right now makes me want to search elsewhere, and I suspect these serps are training other users to do just that. Seriously, how many people have not heard of Amazon or shopped there? How many people want a definition of a product they are searching for? To me, Google is just regurgitating the same data that we know exists. The whole point of search is to find something somewhere that you don't already know about. Google is miserably failing in these regards.

turbocharged, absolutely. The search engine's purpose should be to fetch us a diverse range of results from the deepest reaches of the internet. There's no other tool out there that does this better than Google, and yet they're moving away from their USP - their indexing power. A search engine shouldn't be "prescribing" us a narrow range of results. However, listen to Google and they will disagree about diversity. They will say relevancy is the most important thing, not diversity. To me, this is just an excuse to narrow down the results and claim relevancy is the reason. And their next step will go further than relevancy. Wait til Google Shopping becomes the only result set you see on some commercial searches. You search for Fashion Accessory A, and you get a grid of product images, and a sidebar of text ads and that's it. Then Google will make money on every single click leaving their results page for those commercial searches. Google will always make more money if they can "teach" searchers that a narrower result set is OK, look at these big brand names, don't worry, it's just like your high street. Google don't need the little webmasters in their future vision.

[netmeg]

The whole point of search is to find something somewhere that you don't already know about.

Not for most people it isn't. Most people just want an answer to something; they're not that particular about where they get it. That's why my 81 year old mother prints out stuff from eHow. Because they had the answer that she was looking for.

Until you stand over 200 people in a room and watch them search, you think everyone wants what you want, and that's usually not going to be the case. (Even 200 people are not statistically significant, but it was all we could fit in the room)

From our filter bubble, it looks like Google gets things wrong because they're not the way we would organize them. From Google's filter bubble, they're improving all the time. And they have a lot more data than we do.

[diberry]

Netmeg, if you got a really decent sample size, I think the results would be all over the place with no clear majority. I do know people who search like your mother, but my mother and Boomer friends - who are far from tech savvy - have concluded Google is just an unnecessary stop on the way to about 5 big sites like Amazon, and have bookmarked the big sites so they can bypass Google. This is without my influence or help.

My young friends who are not especially tech savvy prefer social to search. Like your mother, they too just want an answer and aren't all particular about sources, but they'd rather get shoutouts on Facebook in response to a question than go through a dry, boring search engine.

I think actually Google's challenge is that they can't be everything to everybody. The web has gotten so big that no single index can hold it all and serve every purpose equally well. All search engines are standing on a shifting landscape.

[turbocharged]

Not for most people it isn't. Most people just want an answer to something; they're not that particular about where they get it. That's why my 81 year old mother prints out stuff from eHow. Because they had the answer that she was looking for.

You are 100% correct in stating that ordinary people want an answer when performing a search. These people will accept the search results, regardless of what they are, if that answer is obtained. People that are tech savvy, and increasing number that are not, know where to go to find what they are looking for. Google's search results, to some degree, pander to the novice user.

I've had the distinct pleasure to have my work referenced in eHow a number of times. Content that I wrote, after performing a lot of offline research, was nearly quoted (re-worded) by eHow. In these cases eHow gave my clients a nofollow link in their reference section. As one would suspect, eHow outranked the client's webpages by a longshot in each case, despite the reference links.