Google Figures Out What Users Want & Like Based On Comparing Your Content To Others?

Jul 24, 2019 - 7:31 am 10 by

Google Knowing

One of the questions I hear a lot is how does Google know if a web site is something that a user/searcher will like if it doesn't look directly at user behavior signals. So I asked John Mueller of Google if he was a search algorithm, what specific signals would he look at to figure out if a site would lead to a good user experience. His answer was pretty interesting.

In short, John said if a search engine has an overview of most of the web, it can hypothetically "see which type of content is reasonable for which types" of verticals. So if you are comparing a diabeties health site to another, maybe if Google has indexed 500 similar sites, it can understand what a user should expect from such a site? He then explains that maybe it is about specific sub topics on that site, maybe it is about showing more or fewer images, maybe it is about what content is on the site overall.

Here is the video embed but the conversation starts at 37:47 into the video:

Here is the question and answer transcribed:

Barry: If you were a search algorithm, what specific metrics would you use to figure out what is a good user experience on a web site?

John: I don’t know. I probably would have to think about that a bit to see what would work well for me. I mean it is something where if you have an overview of the whole web or kind of a large part of the web and you see which type of content is reasonable for which types of content then that is something where you could potentially infer from that. Like for this particular topic, we need to cover these sub topics, we need to add this information, we need to add these images or fewer images on a page. That is something that perhaps you can look at something like that. I am sure our algorithms are quite a bit more complicated than that.

Forum discussion at YouTube Community.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: April 29, 2025

Apr 29, 2025 - 10:00 am
Other Search Engines

ChatGPT Search Gains Shopping Search Features (Not Ads) & More

Apr 29, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Changing Lastmod Date In Sitemap Isn't An SEO Hack

Apr 29, 2025 - 7:41 am
Bing Search

Bing Tests New AI Answer Summary

Apr 29, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google Ads

Google Tests New Shopping Ads Design

Apr 29, 2025 - 7:21 am
Bing Search

Bing Search Without Microsoft Name By Logo

Apr 29, 2025 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Rolling A Mural At The GooglePlex