A study by German researchers has confirmed what many of us have long suspected: Google search it’s really getting worse.
A team of researchers led by the University of Leipzig, Bauhaus-University Weimar and the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence conducted a study a year-long research experiment to answer the question “Is Google getting worse?” to answer, and the answer was essentially a resounding ‘yes’. The research was not specifically limited to Google and also analyzed the results of the search engines Bing and DuckDuckGo.
The researchers specifically looked at search terms in product reviews, which means we shouldn’t panic right away: for example, searches for short questions with factual answers still yield accurate results. However, the study found that across all search engines, “higher-ranked pages” often showed “signs of lower text quality,” especially SEO spam.
Search, engage, destroy
For the uninitiated, SEO stands for ‘search engine optimization’: the process of optimizing the content of a web page to ensure better rankings in search engine results. This process has evolved significantly over the years; Gone are the days when you could simply put the product name in an article 100 times and lock in the top spot in search results. Google works tirelessly to optimize its own search algorithms to fight spam and deliver the best results for users. Therefore, SEO requirements are constantly changing.
SEO has become a dirty word among many online media outlets. When trying to keep up with Google’s ever-changing algorithms, sites often throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, and sometimes this results in search engines ‘rewarding’ low-quality content because it manages to tick the right boxes to check. SEO has become something of a cottage industry, with companies (sometimes wrongly) promising to take care of it your site will be the highest ranked result for the relevant search terms. The need for good SEO can come at the expense of content quality itself, a frustrating paradox because high-quality content should obviously appear at the top of search results.
Of course, Google isn’t entirely to blame here. The study noted that Google outperformed Bing and DuckDuckGo in several key areas, and when we reached out for comment, a Google spokesperson agreed that “the study itself suggests that Google has improved and outperformed over the past year than other search engines”. They also claimed that Google has “launched specific improvements to address these issues”, and highlighted that other third-party studies have shown that “Google consistently returns higher quality results”, including this study from the New York Times from 2022.
However, there may be deeper issues at play than mere SEO spamming attempts. The advent of generative AI tools such as the immensely popular ones ChatGPT has seen a marked increase in low-quality content specifically targeting Google’s algorithm, and we’re only at the beginning of that.
The machines are coming… for your search results
The German team behind the study noted “a trend towards simplified, repetitive and potentially AI-generated content,” and Bing and Google themselves are already introducing AI-produced search results, via ChatGPT-powered Bing AI and Google’s own Google Bard. After all, why bother writing content and optimizing it for a search engine when a machine can do it for you?
There has been a veritable avalanche of AI-generated content online since ChatGPT’s inception, with many turning to machine learning tools in an attempt to quickly cash in on Google’s search traffic. Sites like the aptly named Robots.net are designed to publish articles that target popular search terms in an attempt to draw traffic away from legitimate reviewers and journalists. These articles are compiled from the actual work of product reviewers and buying guide editors, sourced from dozens of reputable sites, and put together into something the AI thinks will satisfy Google. Algorithms trying to please algorithms… it’s a strange world, isn’t it?
You’ll notice that I haven’t linked Robots.net, despite our usual practice of linking directly to other news sites when we reference them, which is – somewhat amusingly – for SEO reasons. I don’t particularly want Google’s all-seeing algorithm to think that we here at Ny Breaking are in any way associated with that kind of AI-written nonsense, but you can check it out for yourself if you like; they are gloomy things.
As the reach of AI expands, the researchers warn that many internet users have already noticed “a flood of low-quality content” that continues to “drown any kind of useful information in search results.” I can’t say I disagree, and AI programs arguably have a much greater capacity than human writers and editors to ‘game’ the system when it comes to SEO, so there’s a clear danger that things only get worse.
Of course, Google is not going to simply put this aside. Combating AI spam is a major priority for the tech giant right now, although some are questioning Google’s sincerity on the matter. Google’s own attempts to use AI for search results. But I’d like to believe that the powers that be at Google know that people don’t want content written by bots, for bots. Hopefully there will be changes in the near future that will ensure that the articles you get when you search for ‘best budget gaming PC’ are written by people, for people.