Google is not a search engine, but an answer engine
Actually, Google was conceived as an answer engine since its release in 1998. The stated goal was “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
The trend toward answering machines was present from the beginning and became clearly visible at the latest since the acquisition of DeepMind. This was perceived as a significant departure from the purely technical ranking factors previously used.
With the limited resources available at the turn of the millennium, all technical elements of a document that could potentially provide information about the value of the page content for the user were used. The goal was to organize information and thus make it faster and easier to find.
Google’s success stems largely from the ads it places in search results, and it has only been able to maintain its position because users’ needs are met with increasing levels of quality. Naturally, attempts at manipulation are not welcome under such circumstances.
It used to be possible for a website to rank in the top positions without having anything to do with the search term, for example, through link networks. Anyone who searches for something specific and is then presented with such websites will not use that search engine again. Therefore, the search engine operators will want to prevent this scenario.
Therefore, the ever-increasing trend toward answer engines is inevitable for maintaining Google’s success. But it’s not new.
With each Google update, opportunities to manipulate the search results displayed are reduced. Information that Google deems unnecessary for the searcher is excluded.
Anyone who wants to do SEO here has to think more like a human than a search engine.
This is particularly evident in Gary Illyes’s (Google Webspam Team) response at PubCon in Las Vegas in 2016 to the question about the most important aspects website operators should focus on in 2017. Namely, machine learning, AMP, and structured data.
Google’s Machine Learning aims to better understand and anticipate requests
Using machine learning technology, Google’s AI, DeepMind, is now able to learn independently from examples, just like a human neural network. This means that every answer scenario no longer needs to be checked; instead, the fastest answer is delivered by comparing it with existing data. Skynet? No, Google.
AMP – Mobile Pages First
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), a more restricted version of HTML for mobile websites, has come under closer scrutiny due to the Mobile First Index. The Mobile First Index stipulates that mobile versions of websites are indexed before their desktop counterparts. This decision is based on the fact that mobile searches have accounted for over 50% of all search queries for years and are steadily increasing.
With AMP, it’s possible to streamline code in a standardized way, thus achieving significantly shorter loading times. Furthermore, since the mobile website’s output is cached on a Google server, loading times are consistent and extremely user-friendly, but the impact on the website operator’s traffic is controversial. The Google AMP project team promises improvements.
Structured data – this is how Google gets the information it needs without needing the corresponding website
Using structured data, a markup process based on a predefined scheme, Google can deliver specific content directly on the results page. This way, someone simply searching for a concert can find this information on the search results page, click on the result, and be redirected to a ticket service (whatever the decision criteria are…).
For example, flights, hotels, and a wide variety of events can already be searched directly on Google. To achieve this, Google bundles information from structured data in a portal-like manner—bad for portal providers, good for Google.
The precursor to this, the weighting of rich and featured snippets, can already be observed today.
Initially, pre-selected content was only delivered for very simple questions, such as the weather:
Brave New World
We haven’t moved away from a world as described by George Orwell or Aldous Huxley in the 1930s. Skynet, an intelligent and anti-human intelligence, as celebrated in the Terminator series starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is becoming an increasingly serious vision of the future.
Google learns, serves our homes, knows what we’re looking for, and can increasingly offer us things we haven’t yet thought of. Manipulative advertising campaigns that drive us to buy things we don’t even need were already predicted by the advertising of the 1950s. Have we let ourselves be lulled into a false sense of security? Some, perhaps. Will we do it now? Aren’t we already in the middle of it?
Machines make our lives easier. We must learn not to let ourselves be controlled – because machines are creeping up on us (and creeping in), trying to influence us. And very slowly, they’re taking over our thinking.
Aldous Huxley described a society in the future (2540 AD) in which “stability, peace, and freedom” seem assured. People are classified and bred. Alpha-plus people become leaders, Epsilon-minus the worker bees. Humans are conditioned to the constant gratification of consumption, sex, and a drug that deprives members of society of the need for critical thinking and questioning the world order. Governments establish controllers who are worshipped like idols by the population.
The future of Google: From answer to recommendation engine
Google is increasingly evolving from an answer engine to a recommendation engine. With the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning, Google will soon be able to make personalized recommendations before a search query is even submitted. By analyzing user data such as search history and location, it will be possible to proactively suggest relevant content or offers. This development could improve the user experience, but it also raises questions about data protection and control over personal data.
Are these our current YouTube stars, whose young audiences already buy everything and who profit from the advertising displayed on their videos via Google AdWords?