Since a few months ago, Google has been giving more visibility to forums and UGC in top results, in particular, those of Reddit, with whom they've recently announced a partnership that "will facilitate more content-forward displays of Reddit information."
Has this increased visibility of Forum and UGC content made Google search results more useful, and better overall? Answer (the anonymous) poll below.
Has the increased visibility of Forum and UGC content made Google search results more useful and better overall so far?
0%Yes
0%No
I look forward to your answers!
Honestly... if I wanted forum results... I'd go to the forum and search the forum myself.
I have so many thoughts. If anyone wants to read a wall of text and this is specifically on Forums lol -
It's tough cause as a user I have clicked into the Reddit results showing on the first page to find answers. And have gotten the answer that I wanted. Typically this is when I am specifically looking for the everyday person to share their insights rather than a publication or business owner. It's like a check and balance outside of those other sources.
So I'm sure there are other users like myself who Google is trying to and are accommodating in some instances.
I've seen instances of Google duplicating results where there are Reddit or Quora sitelinks following the "Discussions and Forums" SERP feature. Not a fan of that for both UX and giving more first page organic real estate to forums. But overall I think there are gaps in the diversity update/system anyway as I will see instances of my clients with two sitelink results for an implicit search on the first page on occasion.
Sometimes I see outdated information from Reddit/Quora being shown but even for webpages there are instances of outdated results showing. But I wonder if there is a way to gauge relevance/interaction in these forums to make sure that only the most relevant result is showing in SERPs.
They should just house forum results in the "Perspectives" section of search. It also just makes more sense. They could completely revamp the "Perspectives" section as well as it's currently looking just like regular site links although there are more visual components being brought in like videos. And maybe it's just looking less dynamic for the sector I work in and looks different for other sectors.
By increasing Reddit/Quora's visibility on the first page, I feel they will over time and likely already are, diminishing some of the effectiveness of those platforms. People aren't looking to get sold something or get a response from someone with a conflict of interest. They want a checks/balances first-hand experiences and reactions to assess. Google's incentivizing marketers and publishers to go onto these platforms by ranking it on the first page and that could dilute the user experience there. And people are becoming more media literate of "SEO tactics. So what sort of weird butterfly effect/snake-its-tail impact will that have? UGC content will have a similar snake eating it's tail effect but I've already written enough. Time will tell I guess