Augmentation Queries
This past March, Google was granted a patent that involves giving quality scores to queries (the quote above is from that patent). The patent refers to high scoring queries as augmentation queries. Interesting to see that searcher selection is one way that might be used to determine the quality of queries. So, when someone searches. Google may compare the SERPs they receive from the original query to augmentation query results based upon previous searches using the same query terms or synthetic queries. This evaluation against augmentation queries is based upon which search results have received more clicks in the past. Google may decide to add results from an augmentation query to the results for the query searched for to improve the overall search results. How does Google find augmentation queries? One place to look for those is in query logs and click logs. As the patent tells us:
This doesn’t mean that Google is using clicks to directly determine rankings But it is deciding which augmentation queries might be worth using to provide SERPs that people may be satisfied with. There are other things that Google may look at to decide which augmentation queries to use in a set of search results. The patent points out some other factors that may be helpful:
I’ve seen white papers from Google before mentioning synthetic queries, which are queries performed by the search engine instead of human searchers. It makes sense for Google to be exploring query spaces in a manner like this, to see what results are like, and using information such as structured data as a source of those synthetic queries. I’ve written about synthetic queries before at least a couple of times, and in the post Does Google Search Google? How Google May Create and Use Synthetic Queries. Implicit Signals of Query QualityIt is an interesting patent in that it talks about things such as long clicks and short clicks, and ranking web pages on the basis of such things. The patent refers to such things as “implicit Signals of query quality.” More about that in the patent here:
The reasons for the process behind the patent are explained in the description section of the patent where we are told:
A quality signal for a query term can be defined in this way:
The patent can be found at: Query augmentation Abstract
References Cited about Augmentation QueriesThese were a number of references cited by the applicants of the patent, which looked interesting, so I looked them up to see if I could find them to read them and share them here.
This is a Second Look at Augmentation QueriesThis is a continuation patent, which means that it was granted before, with the same description, and it now has new claims. When that happens, it can be worth looking at the old claims and the new claims to see how they have changed. I like that the new version seems to focus more strongly upon structured data. It tells us that it might use structured data in sites that appear for queries as synthetic queries, and if those meet the performance threshold, they may be added to the search results that appear for the original queries. The claims do seem to focus a little more on structured data as synthetic queries, but it doesn’t really change the claims that much. They haven’t changed enough to publish them side by side and compare them. What Google Has Said about Structured Data and RankingsGoogle spokespeople had been telling us that Structured Data doesn’t impact rankings directly, but what they have been saying does seem to have changed somewhat recently. In the Search Engine Roundtable post, Google: Structured Data Doesn’t Give You A Ranking Boost But Can Help Rankings we are told that just having structured data on a site doesn’t automatically boost the rankings of a page, but if the structured data for a page is used as a synthetic query, and it meets the performance threshold as an augmentation query, it might be shown in rankings, thus helping in rankings (as this patent tells us.) Note that this isn’t new, and the continuation patent’s claims don’t appear to have changed that much so that structured data is still being used as synthetic queries, and is checked to see if they work as augmented queries. This does seem to be a really good reason to make sure you are using the appropriate structured data for your pages. Copyright © 2018 SEO by the Sea ⚓. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at may be guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact SEO by the Sea, so we can take appropriate action immediately. Plugin by Taragana The post Quality Scores for Queries: Structured Data, Synthetic Queries and Augmentation Queries appeared first on SEO by the Sea ⚓. from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seobythesea/Tesr/~3/OSrYzTDXupk/
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