Google exploit reveals the importance of a strong brand

Mark Williams-Cook shared a talk at SearchNorwich revealing new insights into how Google ranks content. It’s an incredible talk (we’d 100% recommend watching it all), but one revelation really stood out to us: the concept of a ‘site quality score’.

Williams-Cook described this as a metric that Google uses to measure brand. Its algorithms achieve this by analysing things like branded search, user interactions and branded anchor text. And the fact it exists demonstrates something that every PR has always known. Your brand really matters.

What does this mean for digital PR?

Here at Energy PR, we’re huge advocates for brand building. It’s what we do for our clients every day. But we’re still seeing that so many marketers aren’t willing to invest in their brand. They’re prioritising short-term wins over long-term growth, focusing on PPC and neglecting PR. So it’s brilliant to see hard evidence outlining the value of a strong brand for search.

Brand building isn’t a fluffy, conceptual nice-to-have. It should be an essential part of every marketing strategy. A strong brand delivers huge ROI. It can help you become the go-to choice for your target audience. It can help you bypass your competition altogether. And as revealed by Williams-Cook, it can massively improve your search presence too.

Here’s hoping that 2025 is the year that everyone wakes up to the value of brand.

A late flurry of Google updates

With Google’s November core update and the antitrust trials rumbling on, you’d be forgiven for thinking it would be a quiet end to the year for search. But no. Google decided that December was the perfect time to release not one, but two new updates.

We saw the December 2024 core update and spam update hitting the street. Both were volatile, but the spam update was particularly aggressive. While these are typically designed to combat black hat SEO techniques, it seems the impacts were felt on a much wider scale.

What does this mean for digital PR?

Recently, search results have been a bit of a mess. And these updates feel like a continuation of Google’s efforts to clean it all up.

Now it’s easy to get bogged down in the nuts and bolts of every Google update. Every SEO is affected differently – and most have an opinion that they’re more than happy to share with the world. Just have a scroll through Reddit, LinkedIn or X. You won’t see many happy SEOs. Ever.

Like all algorithm updates, some websites will (and have been) unfairly hit. But for the rest of us, these updates are a reminder to focus on what’s important. Creating quality, audience-led content and building a strong, well-known brand.

Reddit not ranking as well?

As reported in Search Engine Roundtable, it looks like Reddit’s search visibility has taken a small hit. Now Reddit has been a mainstay of the Google search results for a while now. But if this dip is anything to go by, this might be shifting. Could it be something to do with Google’s $60 million deal with Reddit? Or could it be a wider algorithmic shift? Right now, no one knows.

What does this mean for digital PR?

If (and it’s a big if) this dip continues, there could be an opportunity for brands to pick up some more search estate. But even if it doesn’t, we need to learn our lessons from Reddit’s dominance.

Our audiences want real people’s opinions, so that’s what we should be providing. Think promoting your spokespeople, think demonstrating E-E-A-T, think building an engaged community.

Brand building doesn’t need to be corporate and cold. Put your people first and you’ll reap the rewards.