In a recent webmaster hangout, Google’s John Mueller was asked if Google’s search feedback form could be used to harm individual websites. Mueller’s response was clear and provided insight into how Google’s search teams utilize information gathered from search feedback.
Nuance: What is Search Feedback?
At the bottom of every search results page (SERPs) is a link with the anchor text, Send feedback.
Clicking that link opens a pop-up form allowing users to send feedback about a search result. The form includes a disclosure warning users that their system information may be sent to Google. It is presumed that they record browser and IP data to identify malicious reports, but also to compile statistical data related to geography, computer operating systems, and more. This type of data can be useful for tracking down bugs.
Question About Feedback Form Sabotage
A web publisher suggested being aware that their competition was using Google’s feedback form to file negative reports about his company’s websites. The question was:
"…we’re an independent company, we go against conglomerates that are in the billions, worth millions, they have a lot at stake.
They use the feedback, we know this… We know they use the feedback section. We know they use their interns… to denigrate us.
Does that have any effect on ranking and how one is trusted or rated in any way?”
Nuance: About John Mueller’s Answers
John Mueller tends to use filler words like “well” or “Uhm” as a way to pause while thinking through his answers. However, his response in this case was immediate and confident, indicating familiarity with the topic.
Here is Mueller’s response:
“No, no… That’s something that goes to the search team, to the search quality team, to the user experience people, and they take this feedback in a way to better understand… what people’s thoughts are and what kind of content they would like to see in individual situations.”
John Mueller was explicit on this point. The feedback form cannot be used to negatively affect a website’s rankings.
How is the Feedback Form Used by Google?
Mueller further explained how Google uses the search feedback form:
“So that’s something that’s usually more of a longer process and more of something like, ‘Oh, we’ve seen people complain about… amp pages because they don’t like them or they don’t like the logo… we’ve seen lots of people complain about this over time so maybe we should change something slightly there.’
But on the basis of individual sites, that’s not something that we would use that for.
So it’s really a matter of like this is a general trend… and they’re not focusing on one specific site but rather like this whole different area that we’re kind of getting wrong in search and we get feedback from all kinds of people on that general area.
And because of that we should figure out… some approach that we can do to make it easier to show more relevant results to the bigger group of people.”
Nuance: Feedback Form and Quality Control
The idea of showing more relevant results to a broader audience may relate to how Google’s algorithm focuses on satisfying the most people at the top of the SERPs, then addressing the next largest group who may prefer different search results. This is related to user intent.
John Mueller suggests that search results feedback does not impact individual sites, but instead contributes to the quality control process in aggregate. The goal of this quality control is to identify why a search result may not satisfy the majority of users.
Mueller’s response confirms that the Search Results Feedback Form cannot be used to negatively affect reported sites.
Watch the question and answer directly in Google’s Webmaster Hangout.
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