Has Google search gotten worse than a few years ago? This is an opinion that is spreading more and more on the networks, and Google itself is largely responsible for it. Prioritizing more engaging and “click-driving” content, the industry has turned to so-called “clickbait” in an effort to attract views and therefore advertising dollars.
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It’s no secret that pages like the ones you’re reading survive thanks to in-app ads; and for these to work, more people need to enter the page. How to get it? There are many ways, but in recent years clickbait has gained a lot, perhaps too much weight.
Google is now going against clickbait
Clickbait is the act of attracting an audience using out-of-context, sensationalized, or downright misleading content. It’s one of those things that you recognize as soon as you see it, even though on many occasions the attraction is too great not to click on the link. This is precisely why it is so successful, because most Internet users cannot overcome their curiosity.
If someone who works in the online content industry tells you they’ve never used clickbait, they’re lying. We’ve all published “catchy” headlines at some point, basically because we have no choice; if the competition is doing it, it’s hard to justify not doing it when the visitors aren’t coming. And if they don’t arrive, it’s because Google decides they shouldn’t arrive.
So the only solution to the clickbait problem is for Google to decide not to play this ridiculous game, and now there are the first signs that this may change things. In an official publication, the company announced an update to Google’s search engine algorithms that will give less weight to content considered “clickbait”.
The objective, according to Google, is to offer useful content in the results, and for this, will divide the pages into “useful” or “useless”. It will be a new metric that the algorithms will use to order the results each time we do a new search, although it will not be the only one; it only adds to other aspects that are taken into account.
Now, what is considered “useful”? Google has given some hints, indicating that it will favor content that shows it has been tested first-hand, and that the page is made up of experts on the subject in question. They will also improve the results of pages that have one main objective, compared to those that deal with everything. When someone has finished reading the content, they should feel like they have learned something.
It remains to be seen how this change will affect Google’s results. For now, the update will arrive in English results over the next few weeks, with other languages coming later.
