Search Engine Recap - Week 9 (2024)

Welcome to week 9, where we'll cover topics such as Reddit and Google's new partnership, challenges with Gemini, new features for search, and a report that provides a status on digital marketing at an international level in the year 2024. Here's an overview for you.

Google Announces Partnership with Reddit

Google has announced a partnership with Reddit, which will allow Google to display more Reddit content in its search results.

Google's new partnership with Reddit is likely to lead to an increased visibility of Reddit topics in search results with the aim of improving the variety and relevance of search results.

This partnership also includes Reddit utilizing Google's Vertex AI to enhance its search functionalities, marking a significant collaboration that could change the way user-generated content is accessed and utilized online.

This move is expected to enhance the experience by offering a wider range of perspectives directly from Reddit's active communities. This aligns particularly well with Google's increased focus on user perspectives and firsthand experiences.

However, there are critics who do not necessarily view Reddit content as high quality, making it interesting to see how this will actually unfold.

Google Puts Gemini's Image Generator on Pause

Google has recently paused Gemini's image generator, admitting that the way it was "tuned" led to inaccurate results unintentionally.

This provides insight into how Google's algorithms, including their search algorithms, can generate unintended results potentially leading to unintended biases.

The situation with Gemini illustrates the complex challenges in algorithm tuning, which occasionally yields inaccurate search results, leading to criticism of bias in the algorithm.

This can be compared to the old days when Google's algorithm was exploited by 'link builders' who took advantage of the search engine's tuning to promote poor content with many links.

The insight thus provides valuable knowledge for everyone in SEO, emphasizing the need for ongoing evaluation and adjustment of algorithms by search engines.

Three New Features for Google Chrome

Google Chrome has introduced three new features to improve search suggestions by leveraging data collected from users.

The features include personalized suggestions based on past searches, enhanced shopping suggestions with product images from broader categories on mobile, and better search suggestions with limited internet connectivity.

For us in SEO, this again underscores the importance of optimizing for long tail searches and ensuring that content is visually optimized as well as relevant and accessible even with poor internet connections.

Moreover, these features and recommended actions reflect Google's move towards a more AI-driven search engine, built on data from past users, a long tail focus, and content in multimodal formats.

'Digital 2024' Provides Insights into Channels and User Behavior

DataReportal has released its global 'Digital 2024' report, offering insights into how businesses and marketing professionals approach digital marketing and advertising, and how this has evolved over the past year.

The report highlights the growing importance of digital investment with increasing budgets for paid and organic search Year over Year.

However, it seems that CPC for search ads continues to rise, while more and more people use search engines to discover new brands, products, and services.

In fact, search engines account for the majority, emphasizing the importance of an organic presence through SEO for businesses.

Regarding search engines' market share, Bing has seen a relative increase of +11%, while Google remains the absolute market leader with +91% of the search market. In other words; Google is still the go-to choice for us humans.

The report also notes the growing importance of social media, driven by video content and strategic use of hashtags, as well as a mobile-first approach.

A key message for all of us in SEO is therefore the necessity to continue investing in search and social signals and to adapt to evolving trends, including generative AI.

New Generative AI Tool from Google?

Finally, we can share that Google is currently testing a generative AI tool designed to rewrite content from news media for republication, which raises concerns about diluting content and plagiarism.

This further raises ethical and quality concerns among publishers in general, highlighting the potential negative impacts it could have on original content.

It will therefore be interesting to follow the development of this tool and its actual impact.

Takeaways and Recommendations

Week 9 brought several exciting news. The new partnership with Reddit, in particular, underscores Google's focus on accessing more user-generated content, where perspectives and experiences are expressed.

I personally believe that a domain like Reddit will gain something resembling the authority that Wikipedia has had for many years on Google. Wikipedia as the informative source and Reddit as the perspective-giving one.

If a business understands how to adapt to this development, which Google aims to show more of, it can go a long way in SEO and conversion optimization.

Additionally, this week gave us insight into Google's algorithm through all the talk about Gemini's image generator, and we were introduced to a number of new and exciting search functionalities.

In conclusion, based on DataReportal's analysis, the organic presence on Google is only becoming more important, and it is crucial to become better at incorporating social content and video on one's site.

If one manages to do this, the future looks bright for one's SEO strategy.