Industry News

I am so so so tired of covering this topic, we've covered it for well over a dozen years and I just covered it a week or so ago. Google doesn't use CTR, click through data, to rank their search results. But of course, Google posted something that is driving huge confusion again around the topic.

Google is now sending out what I believe are new notifications when a site verified in Google Search Console has seen a drop in clicks, impressions, etc. This alert communicates to the site owner or webmaster that there may be an issue.

Related to the podcast discussion I shared the other day, Andy J. Ko wrote a really good essay called The problem with “learnability” in human-computer interaction. He argues that most software is learned socially, not independently:

We just have to think about our own personal experiences to see that nearly everyone learns how to use all but the simplest software socially, not in isolation. Our friends and family introduce us to new software and teach us how to use it. Our parents...

The Google white paper I just covered mentions explicitly that Google's algorithms can detect if a query is related to YMYL, your money your life, related content and then adjust the weights of the ranking algorithm for those specific queries. There has been some debate in the SEO industry if Google is indeed doing this so now this should clear that up.

unsplash-logoSaketh Garuda Context Clusters and Query Suggestions at Google

A new patent application from Google tells us about how the search engine may use context to find query suggestions before a searcher has completed typing in a full...

I found this discussion on the Product Love podcast really interesting. Eric Boduch talks to Adam Avramescu (Head of Education at Checkr) about the importance of educating customers on how to use your product. They cover a bunch of topics, including the myth that you don’t need education if your UX is good enough, the right way to approach documentation, and how onboarding is an important part of customer education but not the only thing you need.

Listen on Soundcloud or Overcast.

The chatter has not simmered down that much from the February 12/13th Google algorithm update chatter. In fact, it picked up on the 14th, 15th and continued through the weekend through today. Some are saying they are seeing some reversals of the update on the 13th.

Ryan Bigge makes some very good points in his post about better personalized recommendations through transparency and content design:

Data-driven companies know something that the user doesn’t. Yet the language used to convince people to act on recommendations lacks variety and explanatory power.

Algorithms aren’t neutral — or as Ryan puts it:

Every facet of machine learning is fueled by human judgement, so it must be multi-disciplinary.

Users are getting more...

In the article From Four Wheels to Two RJ Marsan talks about the Lyft engineering team’s principles for quickly and safely adding major features to a mobile codebase. It’s full of interesting learnings as they went through the process of adding scooter rentals to the app. Here’s a good point about trying to avoid doing everything in the first release of a new feature:

Every new feature is a chance to start with a clean slate, and it’s often tempting to immediately build for scale. We...