Google says it has adjusted rankings to surface more short-form video, forums, and user-generated content in response to how people search.
Liz Reid, VP and head of Google Search, discussed the changes in a Wall Street Journal Bold Names podcast interview.
What Reid Said
Reid described a shift in where people go for certain questions, especially among younger users:
“There’s a behavioral shift that is happening in conjunction with the move to AI, and that is a shift of who people are going to for a set of questions. And they are going to short-form video, they are going to forums, they are going to user-generated content a lot more than traditional sites.”
She added:
“We do have to respond to who users want to hear from. We are in the business of both giving them high quality information but information that they seek out. And so we have over time adjusted our ranking to surface more of this content in response to what we’ve heard from users.”
To illustrate the behavior change, she gave a lifestyle example:
“Where are you getting your cooking? Are you getting your cooking recipes from a newspaper? Are you getting your cooking recipes from YouTube?”
Reid also highlighted a pattern with search updates:
“One of the things that’s always true about Google Search is that you make changes and there are winners and losers. That’s true on any ranking update.”
Ads And Query Mix
Reid said the impact of AI Overviews on ads is offset by people running more searches overall:
“The revenue with AI Overviews has been relatively stable… some queries may get less clicks on ads, but also it grows overall queries so people do more searches. And so those two things end up balancing out.”
She noted most queries have no ads:
“Most queries don’t have any ads at all… that query is sort of unaffected by ads.”
Reid also described how lowering friction (e.g., Lens, multi-page answers via AI Overviews) increases total searches.
Attribution & Personalization
Reid highlighted work on link prominence and loyal-reader connections:
“We’ve started doing more with inline links that allows you to say according to so-and-so with a big link for whoever the so-and-so is… building both the brand, as well as the click through.”
Quality Signals & Low-Value Content
On quality and spam posture:
“We’ve… expanded beyond this concept of spam to sort of low-value content.”
She said richer, deeper material tends to drive the clicks from AI experiences.
How Google Tests Changes
Asked whether there is a “push” as well as a “pull,” Reid described the evaluate-and-learn loop:
“You take feedback from what you hear from research about what users want, you then test it out, and then you see how users actually act. And then based on how users act, the system then starts to learn and adjust as well.”
Why This Matters
In certain cases, your pages may face increased competition from forum threads and short videos.
That means improvements in quality and technical SEO alone might not fully account for traffic fluctuations if the distribution of formats has changed.
If hit by a Google update, teams should examine where visibility decreases and identify which query types are impacted. From there, determine if competing results have shifted to forum threads or short videos.
Open Questions
Reid didn’t provide timing for when the adjustments began or metrics indicating how much weighting changed.
It’s unclear which categories are most affected or whether the impact will expand further.
Looking Ahead
Reid’s comments confirm that Google has adjusted ranking to reflect evolving user behavior.
Given this, it makes sense to consider creating complementary formats like short videos while continuing to invest in in-depth expertise where traditional pages still win.
Featured Image: Michael Vi/Shutterstock
