Voice Search Is Not the Way of the Future

Since 2016, and especially in 2018, Google has encouraged publishers to use structured data in voice searches. Google embraced speakable structured data and added Guided Recipes to the search console. Google constructed an on-ramp to the voice search highway, but it did not appear to lead anywhere. We now know why, thanks to a recent Search off the Record podcast: voice search is not the future of SEO.

Voice Search on Google

Google Assistant was released in 2016, enabling a new voice-based search experience and promising a new channel for content distribution.

Google adopted the Speakable schema structured data in a Beta program for news publishers in 2018.

That announcement painted a picture of users asking Google for news and Google speaking it to them while also sending links to the users’ mobile devices.

“When people ask the Google Assistant — “Hey Google, what’s the latest news on NASA?”, the Google Assistant responds with an excerpt from a news article and the name of the news organization. Then the Google Assistant asks if the user would like to hear another news article and also sends the relevant links to the user’s mobile device.”

By 2021, Google had published a new developer page for the Speakable beta program.

Publishers were encouraged to include the Speakable structured data markup on their pages to assist search engines and other devices in determining which parts of the content could be spoken.

Speakable structured data was once again pitched to publishers as a new channel for reaching a larger audience.

“The speakable schema.org property identifies sections within an article or webpage that are best suited for audio playback using text-to-speech (TTS). Adding markup allows search engines and other applications to identify content to read aloud on Google Assistant-enabled devices using TTS.
Web pages with speakable structured data can use the Google Assistant to distribute the content through new channels and reach a wider base of users.”

Many in the search community are excited about the future of voice search because of the last part about reaching a broad base of users.

The industry was on the verge of a new way to reach out to new site visitors, but it never materialized.

Read The Top 10 Video Converters for High-Quality Video Conversion.

Voice Search Isn’t the Future, According to Google

Googlers John Mueller and Martin Splitt discussed the future of search in a recent Search Off the Record podcast, and the conversation eventually veered toward voice search.

John Mueller wondered if the search industry would need to optimize for voice search in the future.

Martin Splitt wasted no time in turning off the lights at the voice search party of the future.

His response was devoid of ambiguity.

John Mueller asked:

“What about voice search? Will SEOs have to optimize for voice search?”

Martin Splitt answered:

“Oh God, the future that never will be. I think no, because if we learn anything…”

Martin then compared voice search to the keyboard-less computing future popularized by the television show Star Trek, in which the characters interacted with the computer by speaking directly to it.

Ironically, Google Assistant was modeled after the Star Trek “speak to your computer” paradigm.

In 2013, Slate published an article in which a Googler stated that voice was the future of search.

The Slate interviewer asked:

“Is there a roadmap for how search will look a few years from now?”

The Googler in the 2013 interview responded:

“Our vision is the Star Trek computer,” she shot back with a smile. “You can talk to it—it understands you, and it can have a conversation with you.”

Martin Splitt continued:

“I remember a bunch of years ago, people were like: “Oh, we’ll stop using keyboards and just do voice.”
And I think that has been a recurring theme from the 90s.”

Martin’s explanation of why voice search isn’t the future may reflect a more mature understanding of the technology now that we’ve been using it for a few years.

He mentioned that the “input modality” of voice search had changed, which means that how search is experienced has changed but that the back end of a search that processes voice commands has not changed, implying that voice SEO does not need to exist.

Martin explained:

“But I think in the future, it won’t change and will naturally or magically become the number one thing that we need to worry about.
Simply because it changes the input modality, and it changes probably how queries are phrased, but it doesn’t change the fundamental use of natural language to retrieve information from the Internet.
So I think you don’t have to worry too much about it, to be honest, but that’s maybe just me.
Maybe the future will be completely different and we’ll… I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Martin Splitt Voiced His Thoughts After Doing His Research

Martin qualified his response by saying that he didn’t know what the future of voice search looked like, implying that this was his opinion.

But, if you’re going to listen to anyone’s opinion, a Googler’s opinion, such as Martin Splitt’s, carries a lot of weight and should be taken fairly seriously.

Is it true that voice search isn’t the way of the future?

Martin Splitt appears to imply that a completely keyboard-less future, as envisioned in 2013, is unlikely to occur because, to paraphrase, the back end of the search, which has evolved significantly since 2013, remains the same regardless of “input modality.”

Need help with our free SEO tools? Try our free Backlink Maker, Backlink Checker, Broken Links Finder.