User Experience – Part 3: Why Google Insists on Quality Web Design

In the past User Experience articles, we discussed in Part One the importance of a user-friendly website ; and in Part Two we listed the 9 keys for great User Experience (actually we split them up, for your better user experience [ :) ], into  4 key ingredients  and  5 more key ingredients

Part Three (this part) tells you why search engines (and like usual, we mainly mean Google) favour websites that offer good user experience. This will get a bit political (and more), and if it reads like a conspiracy or a financial thriller, the better …

Well, by “conspiracy” we don’t mean anything sinister. That would be an exaggeration. On the other hand, to say Google “prefers” user-friendly websites would be an understatement. They virtually insist that a website be user-friendly – or else it will get downgraded in search results. Of course, nobody likes “bad” websites. But to actually penalize websites for being user-unfriendly?

Why is that, and what’s their game?

Anybody who thinks that Google is just the enthusiastic, benign traffic cop of the web, is sorely mistaken. Nor are they the innovative idealists who love a perfect cyberspace, and simply want to educate a generation of web designers to create good user experience. Think again.

Google is a business. Sure, it’s very friendly (and user-friendly). Sometimes a bit controversial as it’s ambitious and powerful, but by and large very useful to billions of people; image conscious and socially aware, too.

But in the final analysis Google means business. Cold, hard business. As such, it does what’s best for itself. Now what generates the overwhelming majority of Google’s revenues? The answer is: advertising, such as Google Adwords and associated programs.

The following figures were pulled from Google’s own financial reports page, https://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html  and other relevant sources.

Total Revenue 2014: USD 66 Billion.
Total Revenue 2015: USD 74.6 Billion.
Total Revenue 2016: USD 89 Billion
Revenue 2017 (Est.): USD 97 Billion (Extrapolated & estimated by Webdesigndom)
Google Adwords revenue as a percentage of total revenue (for each of the 4 years): a whopping 90 + %. Yes, that’s Ninety. Not too shabby.

It’s for those dozens of billions of dollars that Google is so strict about the quality of websites.

Now let’s analyze this. Would a visitor spend a lot of time on a user-unfriendly website? Most likely not.

Why does Google reward good content and good user experience? Firstly, because it keeps users on the site longer. And the longer they stay, the more Google Adwords ads they will see that are hosted on that site … of course, the more ads they are then likely to click. And each clicked ad is money into Google’s coffers.

Secondly, the better quality a website that hosts those ads, the higher quality (and more costly per click) ads it will attract.

Thirdly, better traffic will lead to more sales, and more sales will lead to a higher degree of preparedness by Adwords customers to spend even more on clicks. It’s like a virtuous circle, and a win-win for everyone – not least for Google.

It’s in this context that the famous Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird “updates” by Google (banning millions of low quality websites) must be understood. Not to mention Google’s insistence that non-Responsive, i.e.: mobile-unfriendly, websites will be downgraded in search results. It all boils down to the simple principle: higher quality, user-friendlier websites equal higher Google revenue.

All that said, we won’t argue the point that high quality websites are simply better for everyone. They are. And any business should strive for such sites. After all, who wouldn’t want better traffic and better business?

From this angle, Google is actually doing something beneficial for the web business community.

Read the 2 previous parts of this series:    

>>>  Part 1:   Why User- Friendliness is a Must
>>>  Part 2(a):   4 Keys to Great User Experience     >>>  Part 2(b):   5 More Keys to Great User Experience

>>>  Access all our   Knowledge base articles