Google rules the search market, owning 82% of all global search activity. It’s impossible for the search giant to change something without shaking the entire digital world.
And right now, there’s a lot of shaking.
Google’s changing huge chunks of its search model, including updates aimed at making content expertise more relevant, AI overviews, and more. And anyone who does digital marketing needs to understand what Google’s doing — or run the risk of falling behind.
Let’s take a look at the state of Google search in 2024.
“Google Is Less Useful”
The consensus is in: Google search doesn’t work as well as it used to.
There are several possible reasons. Tech journalist Ed Zitron suggests corporate greed — Google seeking more advertising revenue by trying to increase time on site. Others point to decreased traffic on search engines and social media platforms or the homogenization of content as people learn how to optimize their sites for Google rankings.
The truth is a mix of several factors, but the trend is irrefutable: Google recommendations are less reliable and SEO is harder. Both marketers and end users are frustrated.
The Google Search Issues Shaping Content Marketing
There are three major issues you need to be aware of right now.
AI Search Overviews
Google’s AI search overview has been in beta since May 2023, and it recently rolled out to the masses in late May 2024.
The rollout has been … rocky. Google’s search AI feature doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish between credible and non-credible sources, and it can’t determine if an article is satire. Google drastically cut back how many AI answers were showing up to get rid of the worst-offending answers, but don’t let that fool you; the feature is likely here to stay.
This is just one more thing to push organic search results further down the page. Google has been doing this for a while with Adwords and other features, but AI overviews take it even further. On mobile, users may actually have to scroll down to see any organic results. This obviously hurts anyone who relies on Google for organic traffic, and it arguably hurts anyone looking for a legitimate answer (depending on how good Google’s AI answers get).
I was a beta tester for Search Generative Experience (SGE), the predecessor to these AI overviews. SGE was passable, but not nearly as useful as the organic results (especially forum posts and Reddit). For example, I searched “how to make an old fashioned cocktail” and went through the top 20 or so organic results, then checked my results against the AI. Google’s AI basically did the same thing I did, including taking large chunks of recognizable text from the articles in the organic results — and replicating some of the same mistakes, as well as introducing new ones of its own.
The AI isn’t there yet, but Google’s going to keep working on it. This is where the difference between functional and experiential content matters — Google can copy or incorporate functional information (how to do, what is this) but not experiential (I did this, here’s my take). Google wants to corner the market on functional information so users spend more time in the search engine and don’t click away.
The Helpful Content Update
Google rolled out an update in September 2023 that killed a lot of sites. In Google’s words, the Helpful Content Update (HCU) was meant to highlight “helpful content created for people” in search results. The effects were mixed at best.
In March 2024, Google integrated the HCU into its core functionality. Over the course of that time period, many sites saw huge swings in Google search traffic.
Reddit, Quora and other forum sites are seeing huge gains in views and rankings as smaller sites drop in rankings and lose traffic. One of the popular Google hacks of the last few years has been adding “Reddit” to a query to get an answer from a real person instead of an SEO-optimized post that doesn’t answer the question. The heightened emphasis on “content for people” seems to be prioritizing forums. These can be useful for the end user, but the change is a death sentence for some smaller blogs reliant on organic traffic.
As with all major Google changes, there’s a lot of volatility in rankings right now as the search giant tries to dial in its algorithm. The current changes in site rankings may wind up being merely a patch of turbulence. I wouldn’t bet on that, though.
The Google API Leaks
On May 27, 2024, content marketer and former SEO expert Rand Fishkin published an article on his company’s blog titled “An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents with Me; Everyone in SEO Should See Them.” The cache of documents sent shockwaves through the SEO world.
Google doesn’t publish a ton of information about the inner workings of its search engine, often giving just enough information for people to draw their own (often erroneous) conclusions. The algorithm is a closely-guarded secret, leaving SEO experts to puzzle out the details based on inference and study of the effects. Which makes this leak an unexpected windfall for any digital marketer.
To put a finer point on it, this is the biggest cache of information on how Google search works internally that has been seen publicly in at least 25 years.
Technical SEOs will be mining this leak for years to come, but among the most important findings are:
- Google’s heavy reliance on click tracking data. It seems this data is a much larger player in page rankings than Google was willing to admit. Click tracking data is weighted more heavily than SEO favorites like backlinks and keywords. Most of this data seems to come through Chrome, and some may possibly come from Android.
- The keys to specific demotion criteria. There are four major buckets SEO experts have found in the leak that drive down your page rankings: bad navigation, location-specific information (for example, if you’re a brick and mortar business based in Dallas, you probably get demoted in Austin), links that don’t match your target site (mismatched/non-topical information), and user dissatisfaction measured by bounce and exit data.
- Issues with multiple topics. Google has ways to figure out what your area of expertise is, and even formerly high-ranking pages with good information may drag down rankings if those pages fall outside of what Google considers “your sandbox.”
Why Should You Care?
We’re in the middle of an upheaval in the way digital marketing works, and Google’s at the center of it. There are three major ways this impacts your online business.
- It’s harder to get noticed through organic search. Google’s introduction of AI overviews, the rise of forums to the top of the search engine results page (SERP), the narrowing of content you’re “allowed” to rank for … all of these mean that organic Google search success is way harder to gain than ever before. Paid may be more effective.
- Your content has to be both authoritative and interesting. Write for people, not search engine algorithms. Create content that appeals to your audience — don’t leave your niche to write about things that don’t fit, or Google will ding you. Showcase your authority and firsthand experience, things that AI can’t copy and Google (ostensibly) places a high value on.
- Audience development and engagement is more important than ever. You will not rank for broad match keywords anymore unless you’re the 800-pound gorilla of your market segment. Go into details, specifics. Break your audience down into small segments — the narrower the better — and go after them. Shotgun SEO doesn’t work.
Don’t Get Caught Off Guard
The current Google changes are big, but marketers can arm themselves with more information than ever. There’s no excuse to get caught off guard. Create content aimed at your audience, lean into what you’re good at, and don’t play games with Google. Need a hand? We can help. We’ve been doing content marketing since before the term existed — and we can do it for you too. Just drop us a line, anytime.
Best Regards,
David Brandon
Copywriter
Rainmaker Digital Services