Google search results are shrinking: why SEOs should care

For experienced SEO professionals, this problem is familiar, and it usually directly affects website traffic. Recent changes to Google's algorithms regarding product reviews are just the next step in this process.

Who is taking away your traffic?

What makes reviewers, aggregators, marketplaces, distributors and manufacturers different?

• Reviewers: These are sites that use the authority of their authors to write product reviews. They are usually financed through advertising or affiliate programs.

• Aggregators: Resources that rely primarily on data from other sites, such as ratings or opinions.

• Marketplaces: resources that sell products, but often are not their manufacturers. These can be large online stores that offer a wide range of products from various brands.

• Manufacturers: companies that produce and sell their products themselves, both large international brands and small enterprises.

Why should we care about these players?

Here are some key reasons:

• Source bias: Reviewers and aggregators often have a commercial bias, which may affect the credibility of the opinions presented. Sellers, on the other hand, can manipulate product ratings to promote their product offerings. Even manufacturers are not always objective in their assessments.

• Innovation and Startups: Startups often have to work with aggregators and reviewers to get their products noticed as traditional promotion channels become less effective.

• Google's Deep Economic Interests: In practice, Google is interested in increasing its profits, especially through advertising. This has led to search results pushing manufacturers into the background, giving priority to larger, more popular resources.

We need to be aware of how economic and algorithmic trends within Google can impact current SEO results.

Is the trend real?

Getting accurate data on Google search results is difficult, but there are good sources that provide insight into long-term changes. For example, data on 50 popular queries like "best {тип продукта}" and the top 10 results for these queries show an interesting picture.

An analysis of the results since 2013 shows that the share of manufacturers among the TOP 10 search results has decreased significantly. Between 2013 and 2013, about 50% of searches included manufacturers' websites, but that year dropped to just 1%. This confirms the findings about the decrease in the presence of manufacturers in search results.

Additional analysis shows that in recent years, manufacturers’ websites not only began to appear less frequently in the TOP 10, but also lost positions, ending up lower and lower on the search results pages.

This data suggests that most manufacturers are increasingly less likely to rank on the first page for searches related to their products.

Maybe users prefer reviews, comparisons and aggregators

One of the reasons for changes in search results may be the assumption that users prefer pages with reviews and comparisons rather than manufacturers' websites. This opinion seems logical, but it does not fully explain the current situation.

For example, queries like "best mattress pad" show that Google is making heavy use of product carousels - this could be a sign that the system knows which products are the best and can direct users to those products directly, without going through middlemen.

However, these carousels are not always based on ratings or reviews, which indicates that Google has its own product information and can decide which product to show in results.

Google Product Review Update

Google has announced an update that will evaluate the quality of product reviews and comparisons, taking into account detailed product information, how it compares to competitors, and features. This is an important change for SEOs because it affects how content will be ranked and how the search engine will highlight quality resources.

• Google may have enough data to independently verify the veracity of reviews and comparisons, which means that sites with low quality content may have problems.

• Additionally, Google may begin to rely on its product data to drive traffic directly to manufacturers, bypassing reviews and comparisons if they are not of a high standard.

This may lead to a change in the role of intermediaries in search results, which threatens their position.

The Sad Reality: Google Didn't Learn Its Lesson

Despite research showing that Google is committed to keeping users on its site, the system is still focused on maximizing profits rather than improving the user experience. Even though there are product carousels that can be convenient for users, Google continues to adjust its algorithms so that manufacturers cannot fully receive traffic from organic results.

Step 1. Popular Products

The reality is that for most manufacturers there are fewer and fewer opportunities to get noticed without advertising or selling through marketplaces.

Conclusions

The SEO market increasingly depends on the ability of manufacturers to adapt to new conditions that put them at a disadvantage. To continue to compete, many companies are forced to invest in advertising or selling through marketplaces rather than relying on organic traffic.

If you have any questions about SEO, please contact the "SEO COMPUTER" studio for any question by email info@seo.computer.

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