Google Goes On Defensive On Its Search Quality & Forum Results Statements
Recently, we covered some of Google's rationale for ranking forums like Reddit and Quora so well in the Discussion and Forums box for many queries. Just a few days ago, we covered how I was sad to see Google ranking some dangerous and potentially harmful forum threads for health-related queries.
Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liason, posted comments on a LinkedIn post from Lily Ray defending the statement he made on this topic. I'll share them all here, because I am sure many of you did not see them:
"Their response is usually some version of “well, we got a lot of feedback that users like Reddit results and append Reddit to the end of many queries”
That is ... nothing that I said. I didn't say we just show content all the time from Reddit because users like it. I didn't even say Reddit at all. I definitely did not say we somehow append Reddit to the end of many queries. None of that is, sorry, accurate to what I said. If some other Googler said it, please let me know -- but I'm pretty sure no other one has, either.
What I said in summary was: * We show a Discussions and Forums unit if it seems relevant * I understand the concerns about this appearing for medical queries * Apart from this, SEO folks tend to be fairly vocal in disliking seeing more *forum* content in our results -- but searchers find it useful for some things * Our ranking systems are not perfect, and we'll keep improving them -- including this type of feedback, which is appreciated
