The Google search API leak and growth of AI puts the onus on proper content curation.
How you curate news and where you get it from has always mattered – and that process is even more important today. Two major themes developed in 2024 and point to the value of reliable, accurate news sources and how you find the information you need, especially for business-to-business professionals.
Google leaked
First, Moz creator and SparkToro co-founder Rand Fishkin shared anonymously leaked documentation into Google’s search API. Among the myriad insights into Google search, one nugget confirmed that the search giant gave preference to major media outlets, not niche publishers.
“The leak confirms what we’ve known – Google’s algorithms perpetuate an elite traffic circle, sidelining smaller publishers,” said Daniel Foley Carter, director of SEO Stack.
The Google leak simply confirmed what HouseFresh, an independent media outlet that focuses on air quality, reported in February 2024. Through an internal study, it found that product reviews from the likes of Rolling Stone, Forbes and BuzzFeed were ranking higher in Google search results for products like air purifiers, even though HouseFresh specializes in these products and has more authority.
“HouseFresh published a lucid and rational account demonstrating how Google’s Reviews Systems algorithms allegedly give big brands a pass while small independent websites publishing honest reviews steadily lose traffic under each successive wave [of] Google’s new algorithms,” Roger Montti wrote for Search Engine Journal.
The upshot is that you can’t always rely on search to find the information you need. “Studies show that Google’s market share for desktop searches is 83% worldwide and for mobile, it’s 95%. That’s incredible power, but if it’s not surfacing the content needed by millions of people with diverse perspectives and professions, there’s a whole lot of information out there that won’t ever get to the people who need it,” said Melissa Turner, vice president of content at SmartBrief, a Future B2B brand.
“What we have found is that purposebuilt search tools plus human expertise can surface more content on any topic – and especially niche topics that our B2B readers demand. That’s what our newsletters offer,” Turner added.
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