Latest study on Google shows declining search result quality; Check the reason
A new study on Google search has showed that the search engine is losing in terms of search quality when it comes to its search results.
Google is the most used search engine across the globe and through all platforms. However, a new study that is conducted by researchers from Leipzig University, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence has showed that the search engine is losing in terms of search quality when it comes to its search results.
The researchers not only analyzed the search results of Google but also went through the search results of Bing and DuckDuckGo. The researchers analyzed the search results for as long as a year and then came forward with the results. The study showed that the top results for product queries were increasingly littered with content of low-quality from sites that were focused on gaming search algorithms.
This is a result to affiliate marketing which has been on a rise lately. The online publications are the ones that are heavily reliant on affiliate links for monetizing their content. When a user clicks on one of these links and then purchases the particular good on website like Amazon, a small amount of commission is received by a referring site. This has resulted in booming of product review type articles that are meant to increase affiliate traffic and not offer useful information.
The researchers analyzed more than 7000 product search items and found that pages ranked highest by Google were likely to be offered with affiliate links and lower quality content. It was observed that site focused on SEO rather than publisher value.
Google in its defense against these SEO gamers has tweaked its algorithm to detect and demote low-value affiliate content. However, this has only resulted to temporary improvements. Even though the quality of product searches has decreased for Google, it is still better than its competitors. It is noteworthy to mention that the product search quality of Google has also improved over the course of the study period.
Ms Kalinga