Google searches have faced criticism for not meeting previous standards, despite the company’s claims of excellence. A recent study by researchers from various universities revealed that Google’s search results, particularly for products, have included questionable quality websites, likely due to the use of affiliate marketing tactics.
Study shows that the quality of Google research is declining.
A team of researchers from the University of Leipzig, the Bauhaus-University of Weimar, and the Center for Scalable Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence conducted the study, which was published by 404 Media last Tuesday.
Affiliate marketing involves using unique links in reviews to generate income from purchases made through those links, acting as a form of commission from the product’s creator. However, competition for top search rankings has become a significant challenge in this field.
During a year-long study, researchers reviewed 7,392 product surveys and observed that highly ranked pages tend to feature increased optimizations and affiliate links, despite having lower quality content. The study indicates that search engines, including Google, are struggling to combat such SEO tactics effectively.
Struggling with Google is tough, but it’s even harder without it.
Google has outperformed its main competitors, including Bing and DuckDuckGo, despite receiving two reviews. Google attributes its success to constantly refining its algorithms to enhance search results, giving it a competitive edge.
Lily Ray, an SEO specialist, thinks that Google is encountering significant challenges. Numerous websites depend heavily on user-generated content, which spammers exploit. Meanwhile, SEO strategies are gaining importance for online businesses, leading to site cannibalization and a lack of quality content.
Google remains the top search engine, but there are growing doubts about the effectiveness of its measures in combating low-quality and spam-filled websites.
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