Over the past couple of weeks or so, I have been hearing complaints from the SEO and publishing worlds that since some of the more recent core updates, Google has been ranking big publisher brands well above smaller, more specialized publishers that may know the topic better.
In fact, the big ongoing WebmasterWorld thread has lots of complaints about this recently, as are there complaints on Twitter. As you know, SEOs and site owners have always complained about big brands ranking too highly or above them (the smaller brand). But this one is specific to let's say a New York Times domain ranking for something that it might not be a subject area expert on, and the content may show the lack of expertise.
Don't get me wrong, I know these publishers domains hold a lot of weight (not DA) but Google was pretty good at letting a niche small publisher shine even on a domain not as powerful than a bigger publisher. In addition, some of this content is filled with some really bad affiliate links and are not the best experience that Google would want to serve its searchers.
StupidIntelligent in the forum wrote "start a news website in your niche. Push 30 to 40 articles daily. Get millions of signals, and then promote your business through that. This is the only way the system works nowadays. Small website owners or businesses have zero chance. The only bit of decent organic traffic comes to people running news websites in their respective niches."
This tweet kind of highlighted the issue:
When trustable news organizations (Et tu, Telegraph?) start gaming Google search algorithms. Any rejections or endorsements? Or deal with it, applies here. @JohnMu @methode @dannysullivan @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/8fF9NMCfTl
— Human man (@hereandnowim) August 4, 2021
In which John Mueller of Google replied:
When trustable news organizations (Et tu, Telegraph?) start gaming Google search algorithms. Any rejections or endorsements? Or deal with it, applies here. @JohnMu @methode @dannysullivan @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/8fF9NMCfTl
— Human man (@hereandnowim) August 4, 2021
The nice part about the web is that anyone can publish whatever they want. Affiliate sites can publish news, news sites can publish affiliate content. It doesn't mean it'll rank fantastically, but it can -- and that's not necessarily bad.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) August 4, 2021
However, Danny Sullivan of Google chimed in a bit later and said he will pass along this example because "more broadly we've given guidance about any site that hosts content it hasn't written or sponsored content is involved, and sites should be considering this."
I think the screenshot doesn't reflect what I see in the first page of results. That said, I think more broadly we've given guidance about any site that hosts content it hasn't written or sponsored content is involved, and sites should be considering this. I'll also pass this on.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) August 4, 2021
I do think Danny is referring here to the domain leasing guideline but I can be wrong.
So I asked folks to provide even more examples on Twitter and this Twitter thread has a ton of examples of this in action. I'll share some examples below, but it is best (if Google) looks through the thread on Twitter for more:
Here is Investopedia ranking for the term SEO. So, they know everything about stocks, options, bonds, GDP, micro and macroeconomics. Now they're Search Engine Optimization specialists too. MOZ beware! pic.twitter.com/8hCkmRzupA
— Human man (@hereandnowim) August 6, 2021
For all those Americans looking to buy books online but don't know what amazon is... pic.twitter.com/4STE9HycbS
— Human man (@hereandnowim) August 6, 2021
The content is somewhere in my history on Expert's Exchange, and I refuse to go through their app process to access my old profile
— Andy Beard (@AndyBeard) August 5, 2021
the exact same press release, with the same affiliate links, takes up at least half of the top ten results for that query and I'm pretty sure that's not what users are looking for
— Rob Woods 💻🎣🏕️ (@robdwoods) August 5, 2021
More complaints:
Not really a loophole, it's just in line with the current trend of Google preferring to rank "authoritative domains" (not any tool metric) if available at any cost, even at the expense of a more relevant but less authoritative domain.
— Miklós Zoltán (@mzb4455) August 6, 2021
So I found one:) searching for a door dash promo code I got the "coupon" section for WSJ, CNN, Cnet and the Daily Beast - before something like retail me not. All using the same 3rd party widget pic.twitter.com/Px7xpJnLGw
— Colleen Harris (@cdawg2610) August 9, 2021
The reason I am sharing this is to kind of bring more light to this as a possible search quality issue that Google may want to look into.
I can say a lot of search industry publications seem to be seeing less and less traffic, where it is going is interesting. And trust me, I care less about traffic, and I don't take any of this personally, I am not writing this for myself.
Danny will be doing this community news summit next week, if you want to ask questions:
If you are coming, submit questions for @dannysullivan and other Googlers here: https://t.co/3gnn5kuUXo https://t.co/x6wV5j9Ev4
— Megan H. Chan (@meganhchan) August 6, 2021
Forum discussion at Twitter.
