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SEOs to Danny Sullivan: Here’s How to Improve Google Search

Danny Sullivan asked for feedback on how to improve Google. The SEO community responded with these six brilliant suggestions.

SEOs to Danny Sullivan: Here’s How to Improve Google Search

Google’s Danny Sullivan asked the SEO community for feedback on how Google could improve.

The community responded with bright suggestions that made sense for Google and web publishers.

While there were a few tweets with predictable complaints, the response was overwhelmingly constructive.

 

Screenshot of tweet by Danny SullivantGoogle’s Danny Sullivan asked the SEO community for feedback on improvements to Google.

1. Sitelink Control

The most popular request was for more control over sitelinks.

Screenshot of a tweet asking for greater sitelink controlThe most popular request was for more control over sitelinks.

Jenny Halasz made the thoughtful suggestion to bring back sitelink demotions.

SEOs to Danny Sullivan: Here’s How to Improve Google Search

2. Normalize Featured Snippets

Cyrus Shepard suggested normalizing featured snippets so that the title and URL were at the top.

The purpose is to conform with user expectations of the way the search results (SERPs) traditionally appear but may result in more click throughs.

Screenshot of a tweet by Cyrus Shepard

That’s pretty cool.

Would that result in a better click through rate? How about the user experience on a mobile device?

Screenshot of a typical featured snippet

But I can also see how from the user’s perspective, it makes sense to to read the information first. And if they need more, the flow of the action is to click from the position at which they stopped reading.

It’s a fluid top to bottom action in which the user clicks at the moment they understand they want to click.

A good suggestion from Cyrus Shepard!

3. Image Results in Regular SERPs

Google sometimes shows image search results mixed in with the regular search results. But for searches of a company’s brand or product, Google sometimes shows results from competitor sites.

The SEO community questions if that is a good user experience.

SEOs to Danny Sullivan: Here’s How to Improve Google Search

4. Spam Blacklist

One of the more interesting requests is for a spam blacklist.

The person who tweeted it didn’t elaborate on what they would do with the list. But I imagine it would be useful for knowing what sites not to link to.

Knowing who are the spammers could be useful for publishers.

Screenshot of a tweet requesting a spam blacklist

Martin MadDonald @searchmartin highlighted a pragmatic truth about a spam blacklist by playfully suggesting there are alternative uses for such a blacklist.

While his suggestion was tongue in cheek, SEO blacklists have historically been subject to manipulation for the purpose of competitor sabotage.

Still… right?

5. Improvements to Google Search Console

Screenshot of tweet asking for voice search data in GSC

This kind of response makes me proud of our community.

Adding voice query data to the Google Search Console would be very useful.

Voice search is becoming increasingly useful. Not providing this data would leave the SEO community in an informational blind spot.

Screenshot of a tweet asking for more granular data in the GSC

Another fantastic reply was a request for a breakdown of page performance by the type of result.

Google’s using our data. It would be nice to know how they are using it, right?

Some at Google might say that this information might help SEO professionals reverse engineer position zero results. But that’s not a valid reason because we have access to any number of results to study.

Maybe there’s a technical reason why Google doesn’t do this? No doubt many publishers would appreciate this information.

6. Jump Links

Jump Links are links to various sections within a webpage. They are created by what’s called a named anchor. This enables a user to jump from one part of a page to another part of a page.

Google will display these Jump Links to help users navigate to a specific part of a webpage.

Jon Henshaw, Senior SEO Analyst at CBS suggested an expansion of jump links, for elements that use IDs. What a great suggestion!

SEOs to Danny Sullivan: Here’s How to Improve Google Search

What Improvement Would You Like to See at Google?

These are some interesting suggestions so far.

Suggestions to improving Google Search Console and Google Analytics are always welcome as far as I’m concerned.

What would you like to see improved?

Tell Danny Sullivan on Twitter here.  I would enjoy reading more of these great suggestions!


Images by Shutterstock, Modified by Author
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Category SEO
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SEJ STAFF Roger Montti Owner - Martinibuster.com at Martinibuster.com

I have 25 years hands-on experience in SEO and have kept on  top of the evolution of search every step ...

SEOs to Danny Sullivan: Here’s How to Improve Google Search

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