JAKARTA - Google made a series of updates to its search engine aimed at tackling clickbait and increasing the relevance of search results, prioritizing genuine and authentic reviews over recycled information circulating around aggregator sites. The changes in the form of two updates at once are rolling out in the next few weeks.
“We know people don't find content useful if it looks like it's designed to attract clicks rather than inform readers. So starting next week for English users globally, we're rolling out a series of Search improvements to make it easier for people to find useful content created specifically by and for people," the announcement reads.
"This update will help to ensure that unoriginal, low-quality content does not rank highly in Search, especially for online education, entertainment, shopping, and technology-related content," the announcement added.
According to Google spokeswoman Jennifer Kutz, a general search ranking update called "Helpful Content Updates" will begin rolling out globally to English users on Monday, August 22.
A second update "to make it easier to find high-quality original reviews" is expected in the coming weeks. The tech giant has also changed product review ratings many times before, most recently in December 2021 and March 2022.
This update may be of great help to anyone who uses the Reddit "hack" to filter out unhelpful websites in search results in favor of a real human experience.
You can see this in action when you search for hardware reviews. For example, starting a Google search for "Sony WH" in the US suggested two results with "Reddit" at the end supporting the word "review" for the popular Sony WH-1000XM series headphones.
While Google's blog post doesn't mention Reddit as a source for more personalized and authentic content, it's hard not to attribute it to recent search trends.
Comparable to it, the Brave web browser released a new feature that also provides Reddit and Stack Exchange content enhancements. This can be found under the "Discussion" section without having to add anything at the end of the search term.
The announcement for this browser feature alludes to the belief that "Google search is dying" after noting that more people are turning to Reddit for authentic reviews and answers to questions.
Google provides guidance for content creators on its Search Center blog to ensure they are "creating content that will work" once the company's new update rolls out.
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