The Growth of Google Direct Answers - A Dreamforce14 Presentation by Danny Sullivan

The Growth Of Google Direct AnswersDanny Sullivan

Founding Editor, MarketingLand.com & SearchEngineLand.com

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A Quick History Of Direct Answers

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Direct Answers Aren’t New & Google Didn’t Start Them

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Some Early History Of Direct Answers

AltaVista Shortcuts: In 2002, provided links to weather, stock quotes and more

Yahoo Shortcuts: In 2003, similar to AltaVista with weather, quotes, more

Google: In 2005, added weather then “Google Q&A” with fast facts on celebrities, planets, movies and more

Historic & current examples drawn from Google Direct Answers, Search Engine Land’s archive of stories on the topic...

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2007: Google Launches The “Plus Box”

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2007: Flight Tracking Takes Off

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2008: Olympics Information

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2009: Was That An Earthquake?

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2009: Sports Results

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2010: “Answer Highlighting” In Snippets

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2010: What Time Is The Super Bowl?

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2010: More Facts From “Google Squared”

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2010: Futbol!

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2010: Hockey

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2010: Suicide Prevention (& Why Direct Answers Are Great)

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2011: Snow Report

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2013: March Madness

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2014: Direct Answers Go BIG

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Menus

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Step-By-Step

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Structured Snippets

Google Structured Snippets Officially Live In Search Results, Search Engine Land, Sept. 2014

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Direct Answers Now Appear More Often

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Now In Nearly 4% Of All Queries, According To MozCast

Source: MozCast SERP Features Graph

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Concerns Over Credit

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2011

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2014

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2010

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2014

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2007

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2014

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2014

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Are You Thinking WTF Google?

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Sourcing The Sources Some answers done through partnerships; menus, for example, from third-party provider

Others are just because facts is facts, says Google…

When Google Shows A Source Or Credit For Quick Answers & Knowledge Graph, Search Engine Land, Sept. 2014

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So Direct Answers Will Kill SEO?

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Stone Temple Study: Links Are Often Provided

The Great Knowledge Box Showdown: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana

, Stone Temple Consulting

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But Time At Google Itself Is Up

Search Engines Keep Searchers Longer Before Referring Traffic To Web SitesMediaPost, Sept. 2014

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Not All Steps Provided

The Great Knowledge Box Showdown: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana

, Stone Temple Consulting

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Google Mines Answers From Others, Then Stores Them

More Google Answer Boxes, with Bonus Experiment!Moz, Oct. 2014

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SEO Is Dead!

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Not quite…

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IncompleteAnswers

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Weird Answers

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NSFW Answers

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You Know Nothing, Google!

Photo of Ygritte from HBO –Watch Game Of Thrones!

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Reasons To Relax

Google isn’t perfect, can’t turn everything into direct answers

Direct answers still small, single percentage amount of searches

Many searches are complex in nature or multi-session

Publishers aren’t reporting major traffic drops

But stay tuned -- concerns remain & people are watching to see

if Google maintains search engine “balancing act,” especially if the Knowledge Vault really does come

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Things To Do

Don’t like? Nosnippets tag is about the only option

Want? Put more information in tables for structured snippets

As always, be the essential answer Google avoid pointing to

And keep on SEOing, our Periodic Table Of SEO is a good start

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