There is some truth to user complaints about the poor quality of search engine results, according to a recent study published by a group of academic researchers.
Researchers from the University of Leipzig, the Bauhaus University of Weimar, and ScaDS.AI (all in Germany) concluded that “all search engines have serious problems when it comes to highly optimized (affiliate) content.” Ta.
In a paper titled “Is Google Getting Worse? A Longitudinal Study of SEO Spam in Search Engines,” researchers monitored 7,392 product review queries from Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo for one year. Although they were unable to predict where individual pages would rank, they found that they could conclude that: Highly ranked pages are on average more optimized, more monetized with affiliate marketing, and show signs of lower text quality. ”
One problem with this study is that it is limited to product reviews. “Think of it this way: If he's in a big store and he's only walking down one aisle, he's going to miss a lot of the other products in the store,” says the founder of digital marketing provider Microters. says Nazmulhasan, CEO and CEO. and software development services.
“Our research shows that most of the websites are trying to sell you things, and often they have special links that say if you buy something, you can make money,” he told TechNewsWorld. . “This means they were focused on selling, not just providing good, easy-to-understand information. It means that you're asking for help and everyone is turning to you instead. It’s like trying to sell your stuff.”
Google improvements
In a statement to TechNewsWorld, Google spokesperson Ned Adrians said, “This particular study looked narrowly at the content of product reviews, and is based on the billions of queries we see every day. It does not reflect the overall quality or usefulness of searches for.
“We have embarked on concrete improvements to address these issues, and the study itself shows that Google has improved over the past year and is outperforming other search engines. “I’m pointing that out,” he continued.
As part of the study, researchers investigated whether changes made by search engine companies improved the overall quality of results. “Google's updates in particular have had notable effects, but most of these effects are short-lived,” they write.
“In fact, Google's results appear to have improved to some extent since the beginning of the experiment in terms of the amount of affiliate spam,” they continued.
“Nonetheless, we still found some spam domains and observed an overall downward trend in text quality across all three search engines, so there is still considerable room for improvement,” they added. I did.
Promoting conspiracy theories
Adrians also claimed that a number of third parties have measured search engine results for other types of queries and have found that Google has significantly higher quality than the others.
For example, in a paper titled “Where the Earth is Flat and 9/11 Was an Insider Job: A Comparative Algorithmic Audit of Conspiracy Information in Web Search Results,” researchers from the University of Zurich and the University of Bern in Switzerland , Germany's Leibniz Institute, Institute of Social Sciences, and the University of Konstanz found that “all search engines except Google consistently display results promoting conspiracies, with links to websites dedicated to conspiracies in the top results.'' “, but the proportion of such content varied from query to query.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times found that “Bing and DuckDuckGo ranked as less trusted web sites than Google in most time periods when comparing results to website ratings from the Global Disinformation Index, NewsGuard, and studies published in Science.” The site has been brought to the surface.”
“Google's search results included some untrustworthy websites, but they were less common and tended to appear lower on the search page,” it added.
Drive clicks, not quality
The Leipzig and Bauhaus researchers also found that while only a small percentage of product reviews on the web used affiliate marketing, most search results did.
They also observed that there is an inverse relationship between affiliate marketing usage and content complexity, and that all search engines are falling victim to large-scale affiliate link spam campaigns.
“Affiliate sites want to drive clicks,” explains Greg Sterling, co-founder of Near Media, a news, commentary, and analysis website.
“Some would argue that higher quality sites will engender more trust and ultimately be more successful,” he told TechNewsWorld. “But many affiliate marketers rush to create sites and pages to rank better and get more clicks, instead of focusing on building quality content over the long term, which takes time and money.” It seems like you are.”
“Imagine if you were paid for every word you wrote for a project. You might write a lot, but not all of it would be great.'' Some Affiliate Websites So that’s what’s being done,” Nazmul explained. “They create a lot of articles to get people to click and buy through the links, and they make money doing that.”
“They're more concerned with selling than actually providing you with the useful information you need,” he continued. “It's like those annoying ads that pop up and promise great things, but they don't actually work.”
AI contributes to the problem
The researchers also note that the line between benign content and spam in the form of content and link farms is becoming increasingly blurred, a situation that is sure to worsen with the advent of generative AI. I pointed it out.
“AI is going to hurt the system because the writing component of AI is substandard and even the research side is sometimes found to be wrong,” says Website Development and Search Engine Optimization. said Baruch Labunski, CEO of Rank Secure. This is a company located in Toronto.
“This will continue to degrade text quality and send out more spam,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Until search engines decide to raise their standards and set new ground rules, large amounts of low-quality text will continue to pollute search engines.”
Sterling explained that a huge amount of “acceptable” content can be created and then quickly spun up using AI. “It’s cheaper and easier than using humans or building a brand,” he said.
Nazmul added that artificial intelligence can be used to create articles very quickly. “This can lead to more web pages that look good to search engines but aren't very useful to users,” he explained.
vigilance is required
Stirling argued that search engines need to remain vigilant about the quality of search results. “Algorithms need to adapt to quickly respond to evolving spam tactics,” he said. “Google has that capability and will be leveraging AI behind the scenes for that purpose.”
“But,” he continued, “we also need a human editorial aspect, like Google's 'quality raters.'” That's one reason why we're seeing a shift toward social sites like forums and Reddit. ”
“Poor quality content and spam will continue to be a big problem,” he added. “This is why some people are turning to TikTok and Reddit to get information directly from real people instead of using search.”
