A search for "Seattle" is a superb example of how Google's algorithm works right now.

- Does the most relevant content rank? No.
- The most well-linked-to? No.
- The best optimized? No.
- The most useful? No.

Google is ranking the most "engaging" content. More details... /1

News & videos promoting conservative-media-driven fear about a 6-block area of the city dominate. Fox News, WSJ, YouTube clips, etc.

Why?

Because searches for Seattle have been spiking as (mostly) right-wing media focuses heavily on the city's protests. Chart from GG Trends /2

Those searchers aren't seeking tourism info, geography, population, or economics. They want articles & videos that reinforce the bias they came with. They'll scroll until they find it. The ML-algo learns that.

Putting aside politics, this is how Google's updated QDF works /3

The query *deserves* freshness not only b/c of an increase in volume, but b/c new searchers are querying the keyword with a different purpose.

Google's algo quickly learns to serve that new purpose, and changes up the types of content that ranks, and the individual pages. /4

This is one reason SEO in the ~2017-2020 era is so different from SEO in the ten years prior.

The algo learns what searchers will click, and biases to that over what's relevant or well-optimized (in the classic SEO sense).

That *does not* mean SEO's impossible, far from it. /5

It does, however, require a new kind of SEO.

Build the best "Seattle" resource in the world & you'll get nowhere.

Craft a biased-to-conservative-media-searchers page that delivers news & scenes of chaos in the CHOP & you might outrank the competition. /6

This is, obviously, more visible in politically-focused searches than other kinds of content, but it happens everywhere.

Want to rank #1 for "New Switch Games"? You'd better have content about games that came out *very* recently. Even a great page about Q1's games won't do. /7

How do you figure out when/whether a search has shifting types of demand? Google Trends can be helpful. Note the "rising" and "related" queries for that "Seattle" example. /8

Note: when I say "clicks," I don't mean Google's using *only* raw click data. They're sophisticated, likely combining signals like:
- Volume patterns
- Pogo-sticking
- Scrolling
- Query refinements
And dozens more. But shorthand, you can think of it as searcher behavior. /9

Learn what people want when they perform a search, and you've got a shot at ranking.

Assume you know, go build "good, unique, relevant content," and you're probably sunk. /10

This applies to type of content (news, videos, etc) as well as substance. Classic organic on a SERP like "Seattle" right now yields very few clicks.

And yeah, that often means using Google's platforms (Maps, YouTube, GG News), but that's life in the post-monopoly era. /11