Are We Ready to Say Goodbye to Pointlessly Long Articles?

The bells have started ringing: A shift to short-form content for search engine results might be closer than we think!

Once upon a time, our internet search overlords had decided that long means better!

For those unfamiliar with digital marketing, this implies that we must create lengthy and inflated articles to rank on Google searches. Consequently, something that could be explained in 500 words now extends to 2000 words!

However, if we carefully evaluate browsing patterns (including our own), we will notice that most readers are skimming through content to get the information they need.

Yes, long-form content has its place and is useful when necessary. But I don’t need a 2000-word piece on how to make Schzwan Chicken.

Bloated articles that redundantly circle the same point do not provide a great reading experience. And the websites are not to be blamed. They have no choice but to create “in-depth” pieces if they want any shot at ranking on search engines.

However, things might be changing…

Last week, Samsung launched the S24 series last week, and with it came an AI feature that summarizes long-form content. Mind you, this feature comes from Google and will be available on many other Android phones sooner than later.

And, if things go well, how long until this becomes a one-tap feature on Chrome across all platforms?

Not to forget, search engine chatbots (which raised a 'code red' for Google) already aggregate and summarize information from top-ranking articles. Even Hackernoon has a TL;DR section, for God’s sake!

If more visitors begin to rely on content summarization, particularly in B2C mobile browsing, it may not be long before Google starts prioritizing medium or short-form content for certain types of keywords.

On another day, this piece would be 1500+ words, with me rambling about how search engines work, why they prioritize long-form content, and how things are changing in the generative AI era. But, f### it. Not today! You get my point.