Can you believe it? Google is no longer a teenager. The big brother has turned 20 years old in 2018.
Here’s an interesting article, written by Google Search VP Ben Gomes, in conjunction to the company anniversary: Improving search for the next 20 years.
For the next 20 years, Google wants to shift (to quote)…
- From answers to journeys,
- From queries to providing a queryless way to get to information, and
- From text to a more visual way of finding information.
All these sounds great. But… do read between the lines.
Every time Google says “First and foremost, we focus on the user….”, I get the feeling that something against the users’ interests is happening.
Be reminded that Google has been showing more and bigger ads in their search result pages repeatedly over the years. Read here, here, and here.
While Google is certainly serious about improving its users experience in overall. I suppose the shift in next 20 years also meant Google will
- Track users closer and collect even more data to improve product stickiness,
- Inject more suggestions in SERP (we have already seen a 35% surge in “people also ask” in July 2018) to better understand searchers’ intent; and then pushing more ads and product recommendations in the name of “improving user’s Google experience”, and
- Provide better Google image and video search suggestions (probably allow users to preview the videos on site?) to increase users time spent on Google.
Does that red ball in the movie Minority Report comes into mind?
