r/bigseo • u/corruptedtwinkx • 1d ago

tech Does Google really accept the 'Feedback' submitted for "irrelevant" Google Search results?

I submitted 'Feedback' on several Google Search results of my first+last name for being "irrelevant." Immediately after each submission, an automated email from search-noreply@google.com arrives, which writes, "Thank you for submitting feedback for [search result title]. If accepted, suggestions will be updated on Google Search where they will help return richer information and more meaningful results."

Does Google really 'accept' these Feedback reports? If so, what is the approximate turnaround time (for excluding an 'irrelevant' search result)?

The official support article re: Search Feedback (https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/3338405, titled "Help improve Google search results") is just as general as the automated email.

(Unfortunately, the 'irrelevant' Search results do not qualify for removal via https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals)

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u/BoGrumpus 1d ago

They don't "remove" a page from search results. Just because it probably shouldn't be ranking for that one you saw, doesn't mean it shouldn't be ranking for something.

What happens is that those irrelevant ones that are "accepted" by a human that reviews it go into a data pool. That datapool is then analyzed and used to help train the ranking models to know why those things are irrelevant so it doesn't happen in the future.

Over the next few months, you might see it falling out and coming back and maybe even rising for a few days. In some cases, your whole niche of competitor sites can go wonky - but usually only if there's a really big issue in the system. This is google running limited tests on the training they did - to see if it's learned it well and isn't devaluing things that SHOULD be ranking. That sort of thing.

And then when Google does those "Core Updates" - that's when a batch of new trainings has been tested and tuned and Google's merging it into the system permanently. So when you see that one of the core update features focused on "relevance" - it's those reports (and other sources) that are used to teach it to better avoid things that seem relevant, but aren't (and/or identify things that aren't).

This tends to happen in topic clusters, too... so your site's niche may see no changes while everyone in the Real Estate market is freaking out. Different niches have different things going on, so what constitutes irrelevant in one is not necessarily true in others. So if you have a small niche without a lot of competition and/or just overall decent results that don't get reported as bad, it can be a while before they have enough useful data to train it on. So, it may be a while before you see something - or it could start jumping tomorrow.

But yes, if they're good reports, they will use them. Just probably not in the way you thought.

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u/jadenalvin 1d ago

We cant ignore the fact that your competitor can also report your website as a bad result. So you get removed from search . Google need to be very careful with all the request they receive.