In this Generative AI SERP era, having your content rank high on Google essentially can enhance its visibility and reach tremendously. Well, in that regard, the Google Search engine is the most reliable source which points a user to the targeted information.
Even though it’s weird that low-quality articles from Medium and LinkedIn fill up the top positions of Google’s first page, it’s undeniable. What can be the reason? Let’s find out
Low-quality Medium and LinkedIn articles appear on the first page of Google
To begin with, Google give credence to authoritative websites and those considered being trustworthy and credible. In contrast to Google’s focus on authoritative websites, Medium and LinkedIn’s platforms are overwhelmed by low-quality posts that are also ranked high in the search outcomes. This is because Medium and LinkedIn give everyone an opportunity to publish the content, be it relevant or not. In this way, Google might not find the algorithms that help it to throw out inappropriate content and hence it will be displayed on the first pages. This phenomenon challenges the belief that Google protocol always prefers authoritative sources, thus showcasing the imperfection of algorithms to more precisely do the difference between the high and the low quality content.
Medium and LinkedIn’s Content Diversity and Search Visibility:
The fact that Medium and LinkedIn have a huge amount of content that goes over a lot of topics explains the problem of low-quality texts appearing at the beginning of the search results on Google.
Medium and LinkedIn enable more writers to publish on various topics as they aren’t much curated compared to other platforms.
Therefore, the author who writes a blog on “morning fitness” really must have encounter other authors having covered similar or related topics on this platform.
This vast volume of the content has made a competitive landscape, where even poor-quality articles can appear on the first page of Google.
Google Recognizing Medium and LinkedIn’s Topical Authority:
Such case happens because Google sees Medium and LinkedIn as the authoritative niche based on their topics. Topical authority is a measure of how extensive a site is perceived in a certain specialized sphere or theme, on the subject. These two platforms: Medium, and LinkedIn, are both known for the vast collection of multidisciplinary information that they host, and through that, they build their authority in providing a wide range of information. The Google bot reviews and displays the content from Medium’ and LinkedIn’ to confirm it covers too many topic areas. Thus, it gets authority in those areas.
It should be noted that from the perspective of Medium and LinkedIn as topical authority, Google algorithms may be more likely to prioritize Medium and LinkedIn articles for searches with a specific topic even when the individual article has not enough quality. This assumption is mainly a consequence of the fact that Medium’s wide coverage of the topic can be interpreted as the authority of that subject in the field. Hence, an author has better chances to appear at the top of Google’s first page if he/she publishes on “morning fitness” in Medium or LinkedIn since the platform has already been prominent in terms of writing about fitness subjects.
In other words, Google’s ability to display many low-quality articles from Medium and Linkedin on its first page of search results is due to its huge content repository and the perceived authority of the platform in multiple topics. Although Google does want to focus on authoritative sources, Medium and LinkedIn’s range of topics may cause them to prioritize less qualified content in search rankings. This means that the search algorithm of the engines is highly complex in terms of assessing the content quality and pertinence in respect to alternative publishing platforms
Influence of E-E-A-T on Medium and LinkedIn Articles
Some low rating Medium and LinkedIn articles can come out on a Google first page due to the power of E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). Although they have lower levels of expertise and authority, the advantage of these articles is that they are hosted over the platforms with high-quality E-E-A-T signals.
- Expertise: The articles posted on Medium and LinkedIn may not show the expertise as in writing a formal piece, but the platforms have a wide range of contributors who are either professionals, experts, or enthusiasts. This cooperation of the experts leads to an adequate quality of the platform and increases the credibility of the hosted information.
- Authoritativeness: Medium and LinkedIn are well-known and meet performance standards to provide wisdom and intelligence-sharing capabilities. The articles published on these platforms get authenticity from this perceived authority of the platform itself, even though if the content is not of the best quality.
- Trustworthiness: Users have come to believe in the credibility and trustworthiness of these platforms namely Medium and LinkedIn as they have a proper set of content guidelines and community norms. While on rare occasions the content quality is poor, the general trustworthiness of the platforms provides credibility to the articles they host.
- Experience: The user experience provided on both Medium and LinkedIn (with their easy to use interfaces, personalized recommendations, and strong community engagement features) makes the content itself look worthwhile and outstanding.
So yes, E-E-A-T is a Quality of a content that put an emphasis on user experience, thus increasing traffic online and improving the ranking of Google.
High E-E-A-T signals demonstrated by platforms like Medium and LinkedIn leads to the dominance of low-quality articles in Google search results. Despite some possible limitations in certain articles, these platforms provide us with the overall compendium of informational sources, containing expert knowledge, authority, and credibility that attract many users and increase the visibility of the content these platforms host
Summary
Despite the low-quality articles uploaded to these sites, they are flooded on the first page of search results because their libraries feature articles on many topics. This phenomenon emerges when Google figures out its specialized authority by analyzing many articles about the same subject. Lastly, the E-E-A-T represents an additional trust signal that increases the viability of any article and improves the visibility of even the lesser quality one.
Conclusion
When one sees articles of low quality from sites like Medium and LinkedIn on Google’s first page, it might be really confusing. But it rank highly because Google thinks that these sites do a good job of covering topics across a wide range, even if some articles are not great. It is because of the “topical authority” which is a factor only for Google. Google evaluates the websites highlighted based on how well they are usable and trustable by the community which is also known as Expertise, Experience, Expertise and Trust or in short E-E-A-T. Although the value produced by them is not very high, the site assume a high level of popularity among users, and Google takes into account this content when ranking the search results.
