Google SearchLiaison

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Starting today, AI Mode in Google Search is open to all Labs users in the US (no more waitlist). Plus, we’re adding new features to help you get things done - from shopping to planning your next local outing. More details below 🧵

AI Mode in Search introduces new reasoning and tools under the hood with a custom version of Gemini models. For any question, it makes a plan, breaks it down into related subtopics, and runs multiple Google searches to find the most helpful and reliable info. With this query fan-out, AI Mode finds real-time info from both the web and from Google, like facts from our Knowledge Graph, info about the real-world, and shopping details on billions of products. This approach helps you get a greater breadth and depth of information than a traditional search on Google.

The raters guidelines are written for raters to evaluate the quality of our results. We don't use those ratings directly in search. We talk about those guidelines as something creators might review if they want as part of a self-evaluation process, but it doesn't mean things in there are somehow directly tied to rank. I'd actually like to see us take a lot of the concept in the raters guide and redo them for just ordinary creators, written for those creators, as a more general guide. Which, we kind of do have here: developers.google.com/search/docs/fu… As for the whole specific thing on should you say about your site and who wrote what -- it comes back to are you doing things that readers and visitors to your site would want and expect? If so, good! See this section: #ask-who-how-why" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">developers.google.com/search/docs/fu…

@Hobo_Web @searchliaison which is why i said, "i hear you" - the point about it being a concept in QRG

Google's @searchliaison says no, we don't have a brand-ranking system after some confusion of what he said at a recent event seroundtable.com/google-brand-r…

Sam, I gave these remarks at a live event. I'm pretty sure people who were there would agree that I actually was talking pretty fast, probably so much so that it can be hard to keep up. There wasn't a lot of "hmm, let me pause and consider how to answer that without answering that." Which leads to what I was talking about. It's not that -- again -- we have some system that says "This is a brand and therefore rank that brand higher than some other brand." When I said in my follow-up post, "We don't have a brand-ranking system," it's difficult for me to understand what is supposedly me lying or obfuscating there. It's a pretty clear cut statement. Then again, if you are already predisposed to assume I'm lying, there's not a lot I can really add on that. What I was talking about in my remarks is that there are all these things that people try to research to find that make them go "Look! Brand = better rankings!" That's not a surprising *correlation* but it's not the same as "Google calculates your brand and gave you X% brand boost." What it means is if you've built a brand (of any size - my local pizza place as a local brand I recognize), something recognizable, something that people deliberately seek out and trust to the point of perhaps looking for you directly or going to you directly, you probably are doing a nice job with satisfying people generally. And our ranking systems are trying to reward sites by looking at a lot of signals we think align with that. So if you're a site looking to set yourself apart from other sites that might be all offering similar things, commodity information, whatever -- you're one in a sea of choices, understanding how you stand out in that and build your brand (of whatever size, big, small, etc) is generally a good idea period -- overall -- completely independent of search. And by doing that, you probably align with the things that search wants to reward (which is not to say our systems are perfect; they are not, and there are things we need to keep doing on our end which leads to well, this: x.com/searchliaison/…

@tomcritchlow This is the thing that has bothered me the most about Google over the years, the way they lie and obfuscate with word games. “Does Google have/do X?” (Liaison thinks to self, “heh, we call it Y”), and says out loud “Nope, we don’t have/do X.”

Google: "we don't have a brand ranking system. We just have a system that measures company name preference, awareness, affinity and loyalty".... 👀

It's difficult to tell when things are quoted out of a live event if they are actually direct quotations or not. This, I suspect it's a paraphrase (could be wrong). But I given I talked at length at the event (and other things in the past) about how we're not somehow trying to detect a "brand" and then rank based on it being a big brand, small brand, whatever brand, it feels like a paraphrase and misses some important context. The quote seems to come from here: mrjonathanjones.com/2025/03/31/goo… What I recall saying is that we (as people) like good brands of all sizes. That people recognize something (of whatever size) as standing out. And that in terms of search, that may *correlate* with signals we use to reward content. Here's one long paraphrase (it's identified as a paraphrase) of my extended comments: searchenginejournal.com/googles-seo-ti… That doesn't have me saying we somehow measure a brand and then directly use that as a ranking signal. I get you might want to dismiss that all as semantics and so on, read between the lines etc, but no, we don't have a brand-ranking system. That's not how it works. I don't know if this was captured as an exact quote -- it certainly has quotations -- but sounds a lot more like what I would have said: anationofmoms.com/2025/03/google… “Some people argue that having a high volume of branded searches improves rankings. While correlation exists, it’s not about Google favoring big brands. It’s about users recognizing and remembering a site. If people are directly searching for you, mentioning you, or engaging with your content, that signals success. If you’re competing with countless other sites offering the same content, like the 150,000th fried chicken recipe, standing out is essential. It’s not about size—any website, big or small, can establish itself as a brand.”

Google: "We don't favour brands". Meanwhile: (It's always been about reading between the lines)

@OliDietzel @rossstevens_uk This would be a start: developers.google.com/search/docs/ap…

@rossstevens_uk Where do we find the binding Google definition of a "satisfying page experience"? :) @searchliaison

Google creator event: "Your sites are fine". Google Search Liaison: "Some sites with great content and hearts in the right place still don't provide a satisfying page experience".

Thank you for this question. I've seen it similarly come up at two different creator events I was involved with in last October, this concern that "if I don't update, will Google see might some as somehow less?" No. That's not how it works. The systems aren't going to somehow decide your site or existing content is "old" or "stale" and not useful. I end up on older content all the time that's amazing. Search isn't like social media where you need to post all the time and so on. If you need a break from the site to do other things, you can come back to it. By the way, one of those October events is the one where we had a number of creators come out to the Google campus. I haven't really commented on that, because the purpose of that was to really just get creator feedback from some of those who have been most impacted directly to people who are involved with Google Search. Like face-to-face, in person. It wasn't meant as some type of PR event to say "Oh look, all the creators issues are solved now!" And part of the reason I've not wanted to say much about that was especially not to give the impression it was that type of PR thing. But enough time has passed that I feel comfortable making one key point. Those who came were incredible ambassadors for open web creators as a whole. They'd all had personal impacts on their sites, but they approached the event not just for themselves but constantly spoke up for creators generally. I'm deeply appreciative of their time, thoughts and ideas. I'm not alone in that within the search team. I do hope it will indeed lead to us doing better with open web content from small and independent sites.

Thank you for sharing this, Danny. Would the guidance for those of us that have seen no recovery still be to 'work on other things' or when things get improved on Google's end, are we going to be regarded as a lower-quality entity because we haven't worked on our site in a while? We made the decision to move on from new content/updates because we can't afford to continue our operations with no traffic, but is that going to be held against us when the systems are improved?

Danny covers "independent" content creators. "How do we spend more time to guide smaller independent sites to succeed" Reference to a trip to Zurich where they discussed how they could do more. What could they do internally. Reference to "we've done things to help" Unlikely to be a specific update focussed on independent sites but rather more embedded into their algorithm updates. "Our systems don't say big brand = rank it well" "If you're recognised as a brand in your field then that's important, that correlates with a lot of signals in search" (people refer to you, search for you etc) "Are you making sure people understand what your site is about?" Reference to 13,000 feedback submissions from last year. "People come to websites from search and they don't know what they are getting into" "Is it a good thing for you readers" Quite a passionate response from Danny which I can't do justice. Danny says he "doesn't want to take away from small independent publishers" and they "need to reward sites better". Turned into a "soapbox". I like Danny. Some jokes about The Verge. Danny says he "loves search" and it's an amazing thing to be involved in.

1) Yes. With the important caveat that this doesn't mean all sites will go back up to wherever they were if they are down from a previous peak. Our results have continued to change since 2023, including showing more social content, for example. The results are going to continue to evolve. In addition, some sites that have been impacted, they should have been impacted (sorry the site that complained about not ranking for the login page of a medical web site you had nothing to do with). Some sites with great content and hearts in the right place still don't provide a satisfying page experience (which isn't a guarantee of top ranking but it should be considered). But our systems themselves need to get better; it's not all on creators sites that really do have good, solid content. And possibly, those sites might do better than previous peaks. 2) Both of them are on here; I'm sure they've seen it, and they are high enough folks. I'll also do my usual passing along of the feedback on that topic.

@searchliaison @CharlestonCraft @Jonny_J_ Thanks Danny. So: 1) Can we take that to mean "December 31, 2025" (if not before)? 2) To whom specifically should we communicate with on how to survive Google's "AI-first" future? I gather from your response maybe the answer is Robby Stein and Rajan Patel? Anyone else?

The first part we already answered last week. It's what I pointed out from what was shared on LinkedIn: “We also continue our work to surface more content from creators through a series of improvements throughout this year. Some have already happened; additional ones will come later.” linkedin.com/posts/googlese… In other words, there's no specific date because there's no one specific thing that the teams are working on to improve. There are multiple things, because search has multiple things that are involved in ranking. There have been some changes already launched with that goal. Some sites may have benefited from them; others might not, but that's also because the sites themselves are all different. From the group you were with that came out and generously shared your time, not everyone is impacted by exactly the same ranking systems. I certainly hope you and a number of sites that have been impacted despite having good content do see gains as more of these improvements come online. I wish they'd happen faster. I do push for that. But it's not going to be one all-in-one update. The second part, that's well beyond my level. I see you have tagged two execs, so I'm sure they've seen this request.

Danny - I have 2 questions for you as follow up to our visit to Google's HQ in October: 1) By what *specific date* can we expect Google to do better at surfacing independent sites? 2) When will Google talk with publishers about how we fit into Google's "AI-first" future? Let's break down: #1 - Give us a *hard date on the calendar* by which you will **accept accountability** for whether or not you've lived up to your stated goal of doing better by small and independent publishers. Honestly, everything you are saying sounds **exactly** like what you said when we visited Google HQ in October. Same words, same inaction. Let's not look at Google's words. Let's look at what Google HAS done since October: -Google has rolled out "AI Mode" -Google has continued to fill the SERPs with more ads, more AI content, and more ads created with AI content -Google has reduced independent publisher visibility even more -Google has continued to preference Reddit, Quora, and the 16 VC-backed media companies that are allowed on your Internet -Google has announced 75 B in capex spending for AI datacenters -- but not a penny for licensing fees to small publishers Which brings me to question #2: When will Google have a conversation with us about how publishers are supposed to fit into the "AI first" future? When will Google start talking to us about licensing fees? Sundar told the NYT DealBook Summit that he envisions creators "getting paid to create for AI." Ok - when? Meanwhile on this app, us creators and publishers have repeatedly asked for details about when Google will pay us AI licensing fees -- and we just get stonewalled. @rmstein and @rajanpatel have both just flat out refused to reply to direct requests for information on this front (any or all of y'all 3 are still welcome to that polite X Spaces I offered with @ichbinGisele by the way). But --- no -- we just get ignored. It doesn't feel like Google wants to have a conversation about how we fit in the AI future. It feels like Google just wants us to somehow go away. Because it's obvious that Google wants to consume our content without compensation and leave us for dead ... I mean, Google literally just asked the US federal government to change copyright laws to let Google legally steal our content for AI!!!! Google told the federal government we small publishers are too insignificant for it to have to be bothered to negotiate with and pay all of us. Google is paying Reddit though! And Google is paying the AP! *** Seriously Danny -- the 2 questions I asked are 100% fair. We deserve answers. Will Google give us them?

@YoungbloodJoe Yes, I've raised this internally already because it's totally annoying. My understanding is there is a fix underway for that. Not sure on the timing, but we recognize the issue.

Apparently if consumers try to refine their shopping search by removing unwanted keywords, Google ignores them and shows the products they don't want anyways. cc @searchliaison This is me actually looking for a product and I can't filter out the mountains of incorrect matches from the "Popular Products" and "More Products" sections, feels like Google is broken.

Yes, I'd like to see us do a better job with guidance and documentation focused on content issues to add to our existing stuff that's primarily about technical issues. I think that would be valuable. I've shared about this before, including in this whole presentation: x.com/searchliaison/… Or here: x.com/searchliaison/… As I've said before, however, I'm not in charge of our documentation, nor am I the primary team on ecosystem stuff (I mean, I'm not even a team -- I'm just me): x.com/searchliaison/… But I work closely with a variety of teams on a variety of search issues as it makes sense, which often involves a lot of "we should really do this because of X, Y, Z" that's often driven from external feedback. So I do keep lobbying for more improvements and growing our documentation, and I'll point at this as another example of the demand for that. But also, I don't want to suggest that the Search Relations team is somehow not doing all this stuff because they don't want to. They do a lot of documentation and support -- they're super busy with that: developers.google.com/search

Honestly your biggest issue is that no one has any idea what you’re talking about Danny. It’s so ethereal and so anything but concrete and consistent- and I know it’s not you per se. But you (not you per se again) have to model what good sites look like and you’re all worried about some jackass SEOs manipulating your algorithm more than you are making the web better with real education That’s just the truth

@Stefano_24_ @CharlestonCraft @Jonny_J_ I didn’t run the event, it was by @googlesearchc — I’ll pass along the feedback, though slides without context sometimes aren’t good. They do these events in various places, I know, to try and cover lots of regions #calendar" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">developers.google.com/search/events#…

@searchliaison @CharlestonCraft @Jonny_J_ Hi @searchliaison! Could you please share the slides from Search Central Live? Not doing so excludes many professionals who, for economic, geographic, or personal reasons, can’t attend in person. It would be a great gesture of inclusivity for the whole community.

He does. What I said is I’m here and on other social nearly every day (I’m sure I qualified that; I don’t work every day) and that I interact with people here nearly every day when I’m on through direct messages (that’s the part that didn’t get quoted, which is why you don’t see public replies). I see the public feedback, bring it back, follow up with individuals to get more as needed. That’s been more productive than publicly asking for a number of reasons, including that sometimes someone raises a good issue, and then a bunch of other people come by to offer that person unsolicited advice or criticism. And to be clear, this work doesn’t get someone somehow special support. Any issue, we look at how we can take the feedback and make general improvements for many.

@rustybrick @searchliaison he knows replies are public, right?

The Google @searchliaison said he is on X every day and interacts with people here every day

Morgan, I was explaining that sometime people come to a site from search that they’ve never been to before, so it’s good if a site can make it easy for them to understand what a site is about, to recognize it as a brand — whether that’s a big or a small site. Good first impression type of thing. Which isn’t directly tied with ranking but might align with positive factors plus it just makes sense for anyone who wants to stand out when there could be many alternatives. I also said that there are sites that do this already, and fairly emphatically said multiple times that there are also simply issues we need to do better at in relation to small and independent sites, that it’s not just on the sites themselves. I also repeated all the things I’ve said before, that there are great small creator and independent sites out there and that I hope we do better by them, that when we make a statement as done over here linkedin.com/posts/googlese… “We also continue our work to surface more content from creators through a series of improvements throughout this year. Some have already happened; additional ones will come later.” That’s this is a big deal. That this is something we need to live up to.

@Jonny_J_ "People come to websites from search and they don't know what they are getting into" To me this sounds like he says people don’t like blogs or independent websites, and they are doing them a favor by keeping them on Google

Here’s the PDF on AIOs and AI Mode that @searchliaison just mentioned: search.google/pdf/google-abo…

The redesigned Results about you tool protects your privacy by proactively scanning for and helping you remove results containing personal information, like phone numbers and addresses. We're also making it easier to request removals directly on Search. goo.gle/3XHleXl

Today we're launching a new experiment called AI Mode in Google Search. It uses Gemini 2.0 to help with questions that involve exploration, comparisons or reasoning. We're also expanding AI Overviews to more people. Learn more. goo.gle/4i2FGdi

🧵New updates in Search: 📝 Gemini 2.0 is now in AI Overviews and helping with hard questions like coding and advanced math. 🔓You can now access AI Overviews without signing in.

@democracyisLIT @googlesearchc That's why we said it was a "past post." While it was written last year, it still answers the same types of questions that come up about updates and timings.

@googlesearchc @googlesearchc you tweeted a link that has 2023 all over it - wrong link?

The Dec. 2024 core update is rolling out, and we expect it will complete in two weeks. If you're wondering why there's a core update this month after one last month, we have different core systems we're always improving. This past blog post explains more: developers.google.com/search/blog/20…