What is Google Discover, how to optimise content and how to monitor its traffic from Search Console.
Those of you who manage a site linked to the world of Google News will have found yourself displaced when the new item “Discover” appeared on the Search Console. Google has in fact decided to insert a new feature in the Search Console panel with the aim of dividing relevant statistical data and answering questions such as:
- How many times is my site viewed by users using Google Discover ? How much traffic is generated?
- What types of content perform best on Google Discover ?
- How does the same content perform differently on Discover versus traditional search results?
Perhaps, however, it is appropriate to take a step back and better explain what Google Discover is.
What is Google Discover?
Discover is a Google search function available only for mobile phones and whose use is provided by the Brand App. Discover was created to help users stay up to date on all their favorite topics, without needing to type a specific query: users can interact with the Discover feature via the Google.ae mobile home page or directly from the home screen on Pixel phones .
This feature launched in 2017 has grown exponentially, to date there are over 800 million monthly active users who interact with various kinds of content such as: articles, videos and other content on topics of interest to them. As the user interacts with Discover, he can constantly indicate to Google his preferences as to whether or not he is interested in certain topics.
The positive side of Google Discover is that it not only offers new content, but also opens the door to older information, because it intends to offer target formats with the user’s interests regardless of the date of publication.
At this point you might be interested in understanding how to optimize content for Google Discover .
How to optimize content on Google Discover?
Optimizing content for Discover isn’t as simple as it could be for a page that wants to rank in SERPs from desktop or mobile. Not because you have to use a particular technique, but because there is little chance of “playing” with the rules of the algorithm. The ranking of content in Discover, in fact, depends on a Google algorithm that organizes and manages what a particular user might consider most interesting in the whole offer proposed by the various contents.
The algorithm , which analyzes the contents of an article, works on the correspondence of these with a topic of interest indicated by the user , therefore there are no methods that allow you to improve the ranking of the pages of your contents, other than to publish contents that you think may be of interest to users.
To include your website’s pages in Google Discover, you don’t need any special tags or structured data. Content will only be eligible for inclusion in Discover if Google indexes it and it meets the Google News content policies.
So how to optimize content on Google Discover? The answer is very simple: write for the user , respecting two guidelines:
Write and publish content that may be of interest to people: what are users looking for? What topic catches their attention? How do they look for it? What exactly do they want to know about a theme?
- Use high-quality images in your content that are at least 1200px in size and Google has permission to publish them. On its Google support page it says:
What is Discover in Search Console
As anticipated at the beginning of this article, Discover is the new Search Console report that is shown to websites that have gained significant visibility in Discover in the last 1 months in UAE , for this reason it is not enabled for all websites.
Google Discover
This report can be useful in understanding how to optimize your website’s content strategy and help users find interesting and engaging information, whether it is new and topical or informational and evergreen. In fact, this report offers information regarding the frequency with which content is viewed by users and what traffic these visits generate, so it is possible to understand which content has the best performance.
What the Discover report shows in Search Console
The Discover report is for sharing relevant traffic statistics. There is a predefined and standard version which, however, can be customized according to needs. The default view shows clicks, impressions, and average CTR . It is possible to apply filters that allow you to compare data in terms of time of country or URL, as in the screen shown below.
Google Discover reports
However, Google points out that “all page metrics are assigned to the canonical URL and not to the page the user is directed to when they click on a Discover result” . This means that, in the case of AMP and desktop pages, there will be values relating only to the desktop property, as it is the canonical one.
To conclude, this tool is essential for SEO and Content Marketing strategies. Indeed, knowing that Google Discover feeds are driving traffic to the site is important information in deciding to maximize efforts on this on this channel. Get the best offers on SEO Packages Dubai and also on Social media Packages Dubai