Google's September Update: 'Perspective'
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has been central to building successful websites and becoming a leading competitor in the digital marketing space. SEO has become increasingly prevalent since its original conception back in the mid to late 1990s.
In the early days of the internet, search engines like Yahoo and Excite pioneered the concept of keyword rankings. These early platforms determined page rankings primarily based on the use of keywords. Unfortunately, some users resorted to “black hat” strategies, such as keyword stuffing, to manipulate the algorithm and boost visibility, often at the expense of user experience. This tactic prioritised getting to the top of search results over providing valuable content for visitors.
With the authority of Google’s dominant and sophisticated algorithms, the shift moved to ‘white-hat’ tactics, which introduced more strategic SEO thinking, such as link-building, meta-tags and content marketing as a whole. This forced those in the digital space to prioritise an algorithm designed by Google over the actual audience it was intended for.
Amongst Google’s other updates, such as Penguin (2012) and Hummingbird (2013), they have now introduced Perspective. This isn’t a minor routine core adjustment; this is a transformational shift into a new age of SEO. Direct Submit found that webpages that have held authority over others have suddenly dropped from their sovereign position, while pages that have in the past been lower on Google’s rankings have pushed into the limelight.
This blog will delve deeper into the changes that Google has introduced, what they mean for your site, and how marketing departments need to re-focus their efforts in relation to technical and on-page SEO.
What Changed: The Core Components of Perspective
AI leads the charge
Perspective is an AI-focused model. Google no longer wants to know if a user only clicked on your site, but whether the audience’s search intents were satiated without needing to continue the journey.
The algorithm embedded into this AI focuses on:
- Context and intent of the search
- Does the page provide coherent and comprehensive answers?
- Does your page introduce new and refreshing insights and perspectives (pun intended) instead of recycling common knowledge?
Google’s new AI system harnesses user intent to understand context. It can now differentiate between ‘cosmetic’ content that implements keywords and perfect meta-descriptions, and content that has been written comprehensively, and engages audiences. For example, a user searches for ‘best gas chromatography systems, the consumer then hopes for comparative sites, not generic product placements, or sales pages. The intent does not match the result. Google now recognises this and will lower rankings if you can’t comprehensively deliver good, thorough content that is genuinely valuable to your intended audience. Users are the priority, not the algorithm.
Google now prioritises user satisfaction more than anything else. Pages that inherit this ideology have subsequently benefited from the core change that came with Perspective. Google has adopted ‘Intent Satisfaction Metrics’ as its main means of ranking pages. If a page can answer user queries with minimal navigation or additional actions, the page is rewarded with higher rankings. Contrastingly, Google in the past focused more on pages with simple click-through journeys that allowed users to find the answer themselves.
Rewarding genuine experiences
Google has reinforced the EEAT framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). Google’s new AI model has bolstered the ‘Experience’ part of this framework. Sites with a strong bearing towards content that can illustrate genuine, first-hand expertise, and knowledge with unique insights. Content that fails to meet these stringent criteria is penalised and loses its position, prioritising content that does.
Mobile-user experience
Mobile and desktop audiences have often been clustered together when it comes to tracking rankings and keywords. With Perspective, Google’s AI now analyses mobile and desktop interactions independently of one another, meaning different rankings across devices. This makes mobile optimisation and providing a seamless mobile experience more important than ever.
Winners and Losers: If you’re not first, you’re last
What characterises a winner in this new and inexperienced SEO environment? This is SEO’s pseudo-survival of the fittest: evolve or fall. The biggest winners, the apex predator if you will, share common advantages. In-depth content and comprehensive answers to the intended queries, characterised by an authentic experience without the audience needing to look further than their initial search query.
Losers fall into the category of prey. Sites built on thin, transparent, and keyword-stuffed content that have seen sites crumble under the weight of Google’s Perspective. Domain authority also now holds no leverage in ranking potential. A site’s past reputation now needs to be updated with fresh content that bolsters its authority to better reflect that of sites in the ‘predator’ category.
In a nutshell? Being genuine and authentic gets you traffic.
Geographical SEO – Understanding “Proximity-Plus”
Proximity-Plus is an additional segment of Perspective. This is its newest form of local search ranking system. This is the next stage of evolution of the previously named ‘Proximity.’ This amalgamates additional signals from human behaviour with the search context. Previously, the main focus was on distance; it now incorporates user behaviour relevance.
Time of day
There’s nothing worse than searching for a store, finding the perfect one you need, and it’s shut when you search, even though it was the top result. Shops and stores that are open now take priority in rankings over those that are shut. Pushing stores to consider opening times relative to competitors.
Traffic data
The same can go for traffic-related searches. If there’s a store that you’re searching for, Google’s Perspective now considers real-time traffic data. One is three miles away, while the other is five miles away, but the closer store has an additional 10-minute journey time due to traffic. Google will now prioritise that store over the closer one.
Recovery and Fortifying
With this SEO paradigm shift from on-page and keyword management to genuine, authentic content, how do you understand where you’re now sat in the SEO food chain? SEO platforms such as Wincher and SEMrush offer the capability to review your pages’ positioning and overall site health (Google Search Console certainly wouldn’t hurt either). Analysing KPI’s such as keyword positioning and meta tags don’t offer the same safety-net if your rankings are tanking. Instead, focus on the following.
Analyse pages that have lost rankings and consider the pattern. Quite regularly, the issue isn’t your technical SEO, but it’s the foundation that it’s built around. Content that is designed to appease the algorithm but fails to satisfy the human. Recovery begins with understanding which of these two categories your site’s content falls into.
Ask yourself: are you creating content for the algorithm, or for real people?
Build out your content audit, focusing on the user rather than an outdated algorithm. Does your content lead a user to continue to go elsewhere? Or can you deliver a comprehensive answer for them? Do you anticipate questions and address them? Can you deliver beyond the average of everyone else? Failing these questions, remove content or overhaul it; this isn’t small tweaks, it’s a holistic shift in content and digital marketing as a whole.
Evolving to Stay Ahead
Perspective is transforming the SEO environment in its entirety. Change with it or suffer losing the traffic that your site has accumulated. It is not about links, backlinks, or the best keyword. It’s about being genuine and offering solutions before the user even thinks of them. Those who act now are those who will prosper, while others try to catch up.
We’re all human beings. Add a human touch to your online digital content.
How can Network Scientific Help?
Network Scientific have been supporting our clients with their brand visibility for almost 15 years. If you’re struggling with your website rankings and want to grow your website traffic, take a look at the services we offer to help you.
If you need help with your content marketing to adapt to Google’s ‘Perspective’, reach out to our Sales and Marketing team so we can help keep adapt your content marketing strategy.