Google is of the opinion that if it operated Search with complete unabated transparency, the end result would be a massive dip in search result quality. It turns out that many SEO experts agree with the company's sentiments as well.
Google’s been rather adamant about refusing to elaborate upon its exact search engine optimization guidelines, choosing to operate of its own uninterrupted volition. Ultimately, the tech giant doesn’t really catch a lot of flak for it either. Google Search is the company’s flagship product, and even to this day is an incredibly useful font of knowledge for a majority of netizen running around with questions. If it works, don’t fix it, and certainly don’t ask how it works because the effort isn’t really necessary. This is the thought process that most individuals have resigned themselves to as they continue to utilize Search as effectively as possible. However, in recent times, netizens have begun to think whether or not such secrecy is necessary, or helpful even. It only makes setting up websites more difficult for other individuals, and has them essentially brute-force their way onto the top of the Search results; months of trying out different interfaces and layouts, just to appease an algorithm that refuses to elaborate upon what it is that it needs from netizens.
Azeem Ahmed, better known by his online moniker AzeemDigital, is a digital marketing expert who’s managed to build quite a reputation for himself; outside of the marketing world, Azeem frequently conducts conferences and seminars, hosts marketing competitions as a judge, and runs a rather successful podcast. Recently, he took to Twitter with a poll in tow: search marketers were asked whether or not they believed that complete transparency from Google’s end on the SEO front would make SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) better or worse. A total of 443 individuals signed up for the poll, and results were just as I expected. Only 21.7% of individuals agreed that SERPs would improve with transparency, while the remaining 78.3% stated that such expression of how SEO works will only make things worse.
I understand the thought process of users not being comfortable with full transparency with Google’s SEO requirements. We have this thought process that good things should be difficult to strive for, and therefore making it easier for future netizens to design webpages when we had such a difficult time is a mild annoyance. Not to mention that users believe full transparency will lead to the SEO system being exploited. That latter point doesn’t hold up very well since SEO requirements keep getting updated and that the exploitation of a quality-assessment system means that your page is doing well. It isn’t exploitative to read a list of rules and follow them to a T, that’s helpful. Instead, Google’s intent on hiding their rules, bringing absolutely nothing useful to the table.
Read next: Google tests a new feature which is called “People Search Next”
Google’s been rather adamant about refusing to elaborate upon its exact search engine optimization guidelines, choosing to operate of its own uninterrupted volition. Ultimately, the tech giant doesn’t really catch a lot of flak for it either. Google Search is the company’s flagship product, and even to this day is an incredibly useful font of knowledge for a majority of netizen running around with questions. If it works, don’t fix it, and certainly don’t ask how it works because the effort isn’t really necessary. This is the thought process that most individuals have resigned themselves to as they continue to utilize Search as effectively as possible. However, in recent times, netizens have begun to think whether or not such secrecy is necessary, or helpful even. It only makes setting up websites more difficult for other individuals, and has them essentially brute-force their way onto the top of the Search results; months of trying out different interfaces and layouts, just to appease an algorithm that refuses to elaborate upon what it is that it needs from netizens.
Azeem Ahmed, better known by his online moniker AzeemDigital, is a digital marketing expert who’s managed to build quite a reputation for himself; outside of the marketing world, Azeem frequently conducts conferences and seminars, hosts marketing competitions as a judge, and runs a rather successful podcast. Recently, he took to Twitter with a poll in tow: search marketers were asked whether or not they believed that complete transparency from Google’s end on the SEO front would make SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) better or worse. A total of 443 individuals signed up for the poll, and results were just as I expected. Only 21.7% of individuals agreed that SERPs would improve with transparency, while the remaining 78.3% stated that such expression of how SEO works will only make things worse.
I understand the thought process of users not being comfortable with full transparency with Google’s SEO requirements. We have this thought process that good things should be difficult to strive for, and therefore making it easier for future netizens to design webpages when we had such a difficult time is a mild annoyance. Not to mention that users believe full transparency will lead to the SEO system being exploited. That latter point doesn’t hold up very well since SEO requirements keep getting updated and that the exploitation of a quality-assessment system means that your page is doing well. It isn’t exploitative to read a list of rules and follow them to a T, that’s helpful. Instead, Google’s intent on hiding their rules, bringing absolutely nothing useful to the table.
Read next: Google tests a new feature which is called “People Search Next”