Dear Google,
As long as you continue to use SGE and SERPs “without clicks,” you normalize content theft and SEO manipulation.
Moreover, while you clutter search results with ads and sponsored content, you imply that the primary goal of search is sales.
This leads to websites stuffed with affiliate products and advertisements.
If you’re tired of this, as you claim, try following your own advice to “create the web you want to see.”
Specifically:
- Stop putting SGE at the top of search results.
Move it to a separate tab or place it lower on the page.
(After 10 blue links is a good place: people will be happy to see it there).
This will stop complaints about content theft, leaving information accessible to lazy users who will eventually learn where to find it.
- Get rid of expanded snippets, PAA, and other features that encourage people to target content for these features at the expense of usefulness.
- Stop shoving product listings down our throats.
Every time you do this, you blur the line between commercial and informational search intent.
This leads to millions of pages filled with affiliate links and products for sale because “if Google does it, why shouldn’t we?”
TLDR Google: you’ve created this mess yourselves.
Stop defending it.
Look back to where you started to stray from the path and redo your work from there.