Did Google start prioritizing expertise over authority in September 2024? In this article, we’ll take a look at sections of Forbes and CNN that saw traffic drops.
In Glenn Gabe’s latest articlehe wrote about sites that were potential targets for abusing Google’s Site Reputation Abuse Policy and were seeing declines. Google responded that this was not the case, but that their systems “aim to understand whether a section of a website is independent or very different from the main content of the website.”
They referred this tweet thread from 2019:
Glenn cited several examples of websites that experienced dramatic declines, including Forbes Advisor, AP News Buyline, Fortune Recommends, Marketwatch Guides, WSJ Buyside and CNN Underscored. Some were deleted on September 27th and others on October 15th. I noticed many keywords that were discontinued as of September 23, 2024. (I added this data to my algo update list.)
Here is one Screenshot by Gyi Tsakalakis shows that Forbes Advisor’s legal folder is suffering from declines.
Let’s take a look at some of the rejected content. What I want to know is whether the entire area of the website has clearly been downgraded or whether Google has perhaps become better at recognizing the true topic experts.
Forbes Advisor/Healthcare
This section of the site has been declining since September 25th.
I compared the keyword rankings today (October 29th) to those from September 23rd in Ahrefs. The first thing I noticed was that many top keywords maintained or improved their rankings.
However, Some of the reported improvements are not actually true. It looks like Ahrefs reports linking from anywhere within an AIO as the #1 organic entry.
For example, Ahrefs reports the #1 ranking for Forbes for “What is Medical Billing and Payroll Coding.” Without AIO I see Forbes at number 4. (Did you know that you can see the SERPS without AI results by adding -ai to your search?) With the AIO indicator they are in the AIO, but only in 6th place organically.
Given that the AIO provides a detailed answer to this question, I assume that this has resulted in a loss of traffic for Forbes.
Let’s look at another one. For the query: how to become a dental hygienist Forbes ranks No. 1. However, it ranks organically below an AIO. Again, I think many people looking for a quick answer will choose to read the AIO or perhaps click on one of the links in the link cards within.
However, we cannot fully explain the loss of traffic to Forbes due to AIOs taking over their keywords. Ahrefs is actually seeing a sharp drop in keyword rankings, not just traffic. It’s interesting to see that the decline is much more pronounced for keywords outside the top 3.
Let’s use Ahrefs’ filters to look at only the rejected keywords. There are many of them!
Some of these keyword ranking changes are probably just normal fluctuations. I was looking for keywords that were clearly in decline at the end of September and discovered something interesting. I don’t think Forbes did it punishedbut it is possible that other sites deserve this more rewarded which resulted in them being superior to Forbes.
The search term Online sonography programs does not trigger AIO. We can see that Forbes (purple) has been overtaken by organizations that offer sonography programs, including Washburn.edu and Boisestate.edu.
How long does it take to become a crna? triggers an AIO in which Forbes is not represented. We can see that the clinic in Cleveland has improved. Not only did they benefit from Forbes’ decline, but they also jumped from No. 8 to No. 2, surpassing them.
Another sentence that was rejected for Forbes was learn medical billing. This is a really obvious case where sites with real experience on a topic were brought to the forefront, pushing Forbes down. Nurse.org and AAPC.com have been improved for this query.
Let’s look at another side.
CNN underlined
CNN Underscored does product reviews. The website states: “Content is created by the CNN Underscored editorial team Work independently of the CNN newsroom.” You would think that this section of the site would be a prime target for this Website Reputation Abuse Policy Enforcement. However, remember that Google said that the algorithmic part of this policy has not yet been enforced. It is entirely possible that a manual action was taken in this area of the website. Let’s see if Google’s systems simply downgraded CNN Underscored or if my theory is correct and other sites that deserved better were promoted.
The /cnn-underscored folder was certainly affected (although there is still a lot of traffic there, so I feel manual action is less likely).
Not all keywords are down.
Let’s look at a few that dropped significantly around September 23, 2024.
Oh hello. Taste of Home seems like a much better choice to rank for the search query best knife set as CNN.
Although, ironically, the number 1 spot goes to a Forbes subfolder called Forbes Personal Shopper, which hasn’t declined since the end of September and has actually grown slightly. It’s interesting to note that, as far as I can see, this is not a third-party site leveraging Forbes’ authority, but rather appears to be a part of the Forbes website, which is operated by Forbes.
Here is an interesting search term: Smart garage door opener.
It certainly makes more sense for Home Depot to rank for this term than for CNN. However, it is possible that their increase is simply due to CNN declining. This could be a normal rank fluctuation.
What’s more interesting is seeing this decade-old website pop up out of nowhere and outperform CNN. MyQ.com is a manufacturer of a smart garage door opener.
Here’s another interesting thing. For the question, best pillow for stomach sleepers, a Reddit post began to outperform CNN.
It’s questionable whether this post is full of spammers promoting their own products. If these are real people sharing their experiences, this is really a helpful post.
For the same keyword, Health.com rose, overtaking CNN.
What can we learn from this?
It’s difficult to draw firm conclusions by looking at only a handful of queries. The main question I wanted to investigate was whether websites with sections that ranked based on site authority despite a lack of experience were penalized, or perhaps Google was better at identifying who should rank.
While it’s certainly possible that Forbes and CNN received manual action on these sections of their website, I think it’s more likely that Google’s algorithms have improved in determining the more helpful, reliable, and relevant result for searchers.
What does this mean for SEO? If you’re working to promote a business with real customers, legitimate expertise, and experience on your topic, that’s great news. Keep publishing great, original and insightful content. If my theory is correct, what we’re seeing here could be the start of significant changes in the way Google recognizes topic experts.
However, I am concerned about many websites based on understanding how search engines have historically rewarded authority via link signals and traditional recency signals.
This was originally an analysis intended to be included in an installment of my paid publication Marie’s Notes. It got big enough to warrant its own article!