The Early Days of Google Search
Elder Millennials and tech-literate Gen-Xers will remember what a revelation the arrival of Google Search was. Pre-Google web browsing technology—Lycos, AltaVista, Webferret, anyone?—would throw up, at best patchy, sometimes downright peculiar results.
PageRank, Google’s algorithmical approach to ordering pages—broadly based on number and quality of links rather than frequency of keywords—was nothing short of revolutionary. The results page was startlingly relevant to the search terms. They even had the confidence to include the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button that would take you straight to the top result.
So, What is ‘The Great Disconnect’?
Fast forward a quarter of a century or so and some people are questioning whether Google’s search results page is still delivering. These malcontents have given the perceived decline in quality a name: The Great Disconnect. These are some of the reasons that are being identified for why Google search results pages can disappoint where once they thrilled.
All the Adverts
To make money from the billions of searches taking place each day, Google started offering advertising slots. At first these appeared in clearly defined boxes away from the text of the results, but over time they were integrated into the results themselves, so you would have to scroll past increasing numbers of ‘Sponsored’ results to get to the top PageRank result.
Personalisation
Google has gathered so much data on you by now that it thinks it knows what you want better than you do. This personalisation of the algorithm produces a chamber of echoes that is hard to break out from, and results that will confirm rather than challenge your biases.
The SEO Industry
Specialist firms (and we must declare an interest here) exist to promote content to the top of the list for particular searches that are valuable to their clients. At the less scrupulous end of the industry, there are literal content farms churning out low quality content with the principle that if you throw enough mud at a wall some of it will stick. Well, some of it does and it can clog up the results page.
Google’s Own Commercial Interests
Google has multiple commercial interests that it could use its dominance of the search industry to promote over those of its rivals. We’re not saying it does this. But the US courts are… This antitrust case is likely to rumble on for many years as appeals are made to the appeals.
What Does the Future of Search Look Like?
We are never going back to the halcyon days of Google Search. The introduction of AI overviews has shaken things up a lot. There is a lot of nervous talk in the industry about the severing of the link between impressions and click-through-rates.
The worry here is that people no longer feel the need to leave the search results page as they are getting the information they need from the AI right there. Not such a problem for people with something genuine to sell—if you need a hammer you’ll head to the (online) hammer store to make the purchase.
However, if you are e.g. a recipe blogger that relies on the affiliate links on your page for an income, and people are getting an AI overview of your kinds of recipe on the search results page and not clicking through to read about how inspired you were by the chilled soup you ate on your trip to the Algarve (and clicking the link to the travel agent), you could be in trouble.
Alternatives to Google
For people with concerns about the quality of their search results and privacy of their search histories, there are alternatives to Google. Bing is big in voice search, and there’s DuckDuckGo that doesn’t track your data, and Ecosia, that plants a tree each time you make a search. Take your pick and share your favourites with us on our social media!
The Bottom Line
For now Google still has the lion’s share of internet search traffic. So, disconnect or no disconnect, if you want your website to be seen, you need to be featured on their search results page.
