FanClub Mike

Hi @Dreadknux
Funnily enough, this is something we discussed internally a few weeks ago. We're working hard on revamping Pages at the moment, so we'll be able to provide more information in the future about widget customizations 🙂 

Yes 🙂 

I think this has probably gone a little off topic now. 
Martin - Good luck to whatever you do in the future, and thank you for you feedback. Always appreciated 🙂
For any other items, please feel free to use the feedback forum, or indeed the deprecation discussion where some of these items have been discussed at length.

Hey @Joel R, I hear you on that front and I don't think there's a right or wrong answer regarding the AI-generated summaries. Maybe "Topic summary" isn't the best terminology if it's causing some confusion. The way I'm looking at the Topic Summary is as if it were a 'Cliffs Notes' version of the topic.
Also, to quickly touch on the point that I bolded above - If used the way its intended, the new Helpful classifier should help users get to the most accurate solutions quickly.
I think the AI Topic Summaries is absolutely worth more discussion and consideration, but it's something that needs to be done right if or when it is implemented.

AI and LLM and all that could be another good metric but community-based metrics are useful too. For example, someone may post a long-winded rant and I might reply "ok."
AI and such would see that as a useless reply. But, in context, a human would see it's a funny, sarcastic reply and it might get lots of likes or other engagement. So you need both AI and actual I working together to create useful data.

Thanks for sharing all those preview videos! I really enjoy the insight into these new features. I really like the direction it's taking so far. 🙂
I personally don't care for A.I. or LLMs, I feel like they are not part of what a community is: a group of human beings sharing a common interest, supporting and helping each other through social interactions. I'm not interested in talking to a machine or reading text that was generated by a machine. 
As for waiting, there's no point releasing a beta if it isn't ready to be released. I don't mind being patient and waiting a little longer - especially if it means ending up with a better, more reliable product. 

As much as we would love to be that quick, 4.7.14 is a maintenance release for bug fixing 🙂 We have it covered, dont worry. But it will take some time for new things to be included

Changes to Q&A markup
Google also updated its Q&A markup to say if you are already using Q&A markup for your question and answer user forums. The company is updating the Q&A structured data documentation to be more in line with the richness of the new discussion forum guidelines. You don’t need to use both types of structured data on the same page. You should instead use the one that’s best suited to your use case:
Q&A forums: If your forum is structured by a question that’s followed by answers, use Q&A markup. For general forums: If your forum structure is more general and isn’t strictly question and answer content, use DiscussionForumPosting. Documentation: Q&A (QAPage) structured data

This is a big move by Google with the potential to showcase more forum content in search as well as highlight members of the community. Sharing this here hoping it can be natively added to IC5 🤞
Snippets below
-----------------------------------
New in structured data: discussion forum and profile page markup
Today we're announcing support for profile page and discussion forum structured data for use in Google Search, including new reports in Search Console. This markup works with Google Search features that are designed to show first-person perspectives from social media platforms, forums, and other communities. Implementing this structured data will help ensure what Search shows in these features is as accurate and complete as possible.
-----------------------------------
Discussion forum (DiscussionForumPosting) structured data
In general, we recommend nesting comments under the post they relate to. If the forum has its own threading structure, use a tree of comments to represent its structure
If it's more linear in nature (for example, an original post followed by a series of replies), nest them all under the original post as comments. Ideally, later pages of content in multi-page forums include the original post with the main page URL
-----------------------------------
Profile page (ProfilePage) structured data
The primary focus of the page must be a single person or organization that is affiliated with the overall website. Here are some examples of profile pages:

Valid use cases:
A user profile page on a forum or social media site An author page on a news site An "About Me" page on a blog site An employee page on a company website Invalid use cases:
The main home page of a store (usually contains lots of non-profile info) An organization review site (the organization isn't associated with the website) -----------------------------------
@Daniel F - Tagging you in case you haven't come across this yet. I know you make THE SEO application and probably have as much SEO knowledge as anyone in the space.

Sorry for the confusion, I completely misinterpreted your message. Thanks for the follow-up!

The problem is that too many people want to throw AI at everything. I've seen loads of AI based 'executive summaries' on things like Helpscout, Amazon Reviews, etc that honestly do not offer much value.

We are happy with using signals and a mathematical model for this feature. @Matt Finger has been discussing building a LLM for many things, so it's an area we are interested in.

This is a big move by Google with the potential to showcase more forum content in search as well as highlight members of the community. Sharing this here hoping it can be natively added to IC5 🤞
Snippets below
-----------------------------------
New in structured data: discussion forum and profile page markup
Today we're announcing support for profile page and discussion forum structured data for use in Google Search, including new reports in Search Console. This markup works with Google Search features that are designed to show first-person perspectives from social media platforms, forums, and other communities. Implementing this structured data will help ensure what Search shows in these features is as accurate and complete as possible.
-----------------------------------
Discussion forum (DiscussionForumPosting) structured data
In general, we recommend nesting comments under the post they relate to. If the forum has its own threading structure, use a tree of comments to represent its structure
If it's more linear in nature (for example, an original post followed by a series of replies), nest them all under the original post as comments. Ideally, later pages of content in multi-page forums include the original post with the main page URL
-----------------------------------
Profile page (ProfilePage) structured data
The primary focus of the page must be a single person or organization that is affiliated with the overall website. Here are some examples of profile pages:

Valid use cases:
A user profile page on a forum or social media site An author page on a news site An "About Me" page on a blog site An employee page on a company website Invalid use cases:
The main home page of a store (usually contains lots of non-profile info) An organization review site (the organization isn't associated with the website) -----------------------------------
@Daniel F - Tagging you in case you haven't come across this yet. I know you make THE SEO application and probably have as much SEO knowledge as anyone in the space.

I don't believe in this instance that's the case. I believe it has more to do with all the garbage SEO content taking over search and it's getting even worse due to AI. As it continues to get tougher to distinguish between AI content and human content, first-hand experience and demonstration of real knowledge are becoming more of a focus in Google.
A Google Engineer has been advising on how to improve and better position forum content in search since March. Recently Google's been actively showing more 'Perspectives' content on mobile as well as highlighting Discussions and Forums. Until now, most of those results have been from Reddit and Quora. These changes should help showcase more variety.
Engineer's Quote:
"And most importantly, thanks for making changes. It heartens me to see forum platforms moving to expose their content better. I really would like to see this content more in search results rather than low quality, over-optimized rehash articles."
I work for a publisher that is investing heavily in AI. I see it across many other publishers as well and it's only going to continue to ramp up. I hate the direction publishers are heading in and if Google doesn't get ahead of it, searchers aren't going to be able to trust any of the results Google delivers. There's a reason so many people add 'Reddit' to the end of their searches now.
User-generated content and real-life experience are becoming more and more important.

I don't believe in this instance that's the case. I believe it has more to do with all the garbage SEO content taking over search and it's getting even worse due to AI. As it continues to get tougher to distinguish between AI content and human content, first-hand experience and demonstration of real knowledge are becoming more of a focus in Google.
A Google Engineer has been advising on how to improve and better position forum content in search since March. Recently Google's been actively showing more 'Perspectives' content on mobile as well as highlighting Discussions and Forums. Until now, most of those results have been from Reddit and Quora. These changes should help showcase more variety.
Engineer's Quote:
"And most importantly, thanks for making changes. It heartens me to see forum platforms moving to expose their content better. I really would like to see this content more in search results rather than low quality, over-optimized rehash articles."
I work for a publisher that is investing heavily in AI. I see it across many other publishers as well and it's only going to continue to ramp up. I hate the direction publishers are heading in and if Google doesn't get ahead of it, searchers aren't going to be able to trust any of the results Google delivers. There's a reason so many people add 'Reddit' to the end of their searches now.
User-generated content and real-life experience are becoming more and more important.

I don't believe in this instance that's the case. I believe it has more to do with all the garbage SEO content taking over search and it's getting even worse due to AI. As it continues to get tougher to distinguish between AI content and human content, first-hand experience and demonstration of real knowledge are becoming more of a focus in Google.
A Google Engineer has been advising on how to improve and better position forum content in search since March. Recently Google's been actively showing more 'Perspectives' content on mobile as well as highlighting Discussions and Forums. Until now, most of those results have been from Reddit and Quora. These changes should help showcase more variety.
Engineer's Quote:
"And most importantly, thanks for making changes. It heartens me to see forum platforms moving to expose their content better. I really would like to see this content more in search results rather than low quality, over-optimized rehash articles."
I work for a publisher that is investing heavily in AI. I see it across many other publishers as well and it's only going to continue to ramp up. I hate the direction publishers are heading in and if Google doesn't get ahead of it, searchers aren't going to be able to trust any of the results Google delivers. There's a reason so many people add 'Reddit' to the end of their searches now.
User-generated content and real-life experience are becoming more and more important.

I don't believe in this instance that's the case. I believe it has more to do with all the garbage SEO content taking over search and it's getting even worse due to AI. As it continues to get tougher to distinguish between AI content and human content, first-hand experience and demonstration of real knowledge are becoming more of a focus in Google.
A Google Engineer has been advising on how to improve and better position forum content in search since March. Recently Google's been actively showing more 'Perspectives' content on mobile as well as highlighting Discussions and Forums. Until now, most of those results have been from Reddit and Quora. These changes should help showcase more variety.
Engineer's Quote:
"And most importantly, thanks for making changes. It heartens me to see forum platforms moving to expose their content better. I really would like to see this content more in search results rather than low quality, over-optimized rehash articles."
I work for a publisher that is investing heavily in AI. I see it across many other publishers as well and it's only going to continue to ramp up. I hate the direction publishers are heading in and if Google doesn't get ahead of it, searchers aren't going to be able to trust any of the results Google delivers. There's a reason so many people add 'Reddit' to the end of their searches now.
User-generated content and real-life experience are becoming more and more important.

This is a big move by Google with the potential to showcase more forum content in search as well as highlight members of the community. Sharing this here hoping it can be natively added to IC5 🤞
Snippets below
-----------------------------------
New in structured data: discussion forum and profile page markup
Today we're announcing support for profile page and discussion forum structured data for use in Google Search, including new reports in Search Console. This markup works with Google Search features that are designed to show first-person perspectives from social media platforms, forums, and other communities. Implementing this structured data will help ensure what Search shows in these features is as accurate and complete as possible.
-----------------------------------
Discussion forum (DiscussionForumPosting) structured data
In general, we recommend nesting comments under the post they relate to. If the forum has its own threading structure, use a tree of comments to represent its structure
If it's more linear in nature (for example, an original post followed by a series of replies), nest them all under the original post as comments. Ideally, later pages of content in multi-page forums include the original post with the main page URL
-----------------------------------
Profile page (ProfilePage) structured data
The primary focus of the page must be a single person or organization that is affiliated with the overall website. Here are some examples of profile pages:

Valid use cases:
A user profile page on a forum or social media site An author page on a news site An "About Me" page on a blog site An employee page on a company website Invalid use cases:
The main home page of a store (usually contains lots of non-profile info) An organization review site (the organization isn't associated with the website) -----------------------------------
@Daniel F - Tagging you in case you haven't come across this yet. I know you make THE SEO application and probably have as much SEO knowledge as anyone in the space.

Changes to Q&A markup
Google also updated its Q&A markup to say if you are already using Q&A markup for your question and answer user forums. The company is updating the Q&A structured data documentation to be more in line with the richness of the new discussion forum guidelines. You don’t need to use both types of structured data on the same page. You should instead use the one that’s best suited to your use case:
Q&A forums: If your forum is structured by a question that’s followed by answers, use Q&A markup. For general forums: If your forum structure is more general and isn’t strictly question and answer content, use DiscussionForumPosting. Documentation: Q&A (QAPage) structured data

This is a big move by Google with the potential to showcase more forum content in search as well as highlight members of the community. Sharing this here hoping it can be natively added to IC5 🤞
Snippets below
-----------------------------------
New in structured data: discussion forum and profile page markup
Today we're announcing support for profile page and discussion forum structured data for use in Google Search, including new reports in Search Console. This markup works with Google Search features that are designed to show first-person perspectives from social media platforms, forums, and other communities. Implementing this structured data will help ensure what Search shows in these features is as accurate and complete as possible.
-----------------------------------
Discussion forum (DiscussionForumPosting) structured data
In general, we recommend nesting comments under the post they relate to. If the forum has its own threading structure, use a tree of comments to represent its structure
If it's more linear in nature (for example, an original post followed by a series of replies), nest them all under the original post as comments. Ideally, later pages of content in multi-page forums include the original post with the main page URL
-----------------------------------
Profile page (ProfilePage) structured data
The primary focus of the page must be a single person or organization that is affiliated with the overall website. Here are some examples of profile pages:

Valid use cases:
A user profile page on a forum or social media site An author page on a news site An "About Me" page on a blog site An employee page on a company website Invalid use cases:
The main home page of a store (usually contains lots of non-profile info) An organization review site (the organization isn't associated with the website) -----------------------------------
@Daniel F - Tagging you in case you haven't come across this yet. I know you make THE SEO application and probably have as much SEO knowledge as anyone in the space.

I suppose it depends on point of view. Personally, I find I click things more when I see what may be an answer to the question I've put into google, to ensure thats what Im looking for

We can provide the tools and you can decide how to use them. Google taking forum content seriously after years of "user generated content" being rated down can only be a good thing overall.

See the links in the original post. Google are making large changes to how forum posts are presented in their search results and they include more data on the author including a link to their profile page.

If you do not want to have profiles indexed, then you can simply adjust the robots.txt via the ACP to exclude them again.
We would still add 'noindex' meta tags to profile without any valuable content to avoid loads of thin pages being indexed and sucking up the crawl budget.

We are chatting about this internally and I think we agree that there is now value in letting most profiles be indexed. We still want to avoid 'thin' content pages for members who haven't posted, or perhaps haven't posted in years.

This is a big move by Google with the potential to showcase more forum content in search as well as highlight members of the community. Sharing this here hoping it can be natively added to IC5 🤞
Snippets below
-----------------------------------
New in structured data: discussion forum and profile page markup
Today we're announcing support for profile page and discussion forum structured data for use in Google Search, including new reports in Search Console. This markup works with Google Search features that are designed to show first-person perspectives from social media platforms, forums, and other communities. Implementing this structured data will help ensure what Search shows in these features is as accurate and complete as possible.
-----------------------------------
Discussion forum (DiscussionForumPosting) structured data
In general, we recommend nesting comments under the post they relate to. If the forum has its own threading structure, use a tree of comments to represent its structure
If it's more linear in nature (for example, an original post followed by a series of replies), nest them all under the original post as comments. Ideally, later pages of content in multi-page forums include the original post with the main page URL
-----------------------------------
Profile page (ProfilePage) structured data
The primary focus of the page must be a single person or organization that is affiliated with the overall website. Here are some examples of profile pages:

Valid use cases:
A user profile page on a forum or social media site An author page on a news site An "About Me" page on a blog site An employee page on a company website Invalid use cases:
The main home page of a store (usually contains lots of non-profile info) An organization review site (the organization isn't associated with the website) -----------------------------------
@Daniel F - Tagging you in case you haven't come across this yet. I know you make THE SEO application and probably have as much SEO knowledge as anyone in the space.

This is a big move by Google with the potential to showcase more forum content in search as well as highlight members of the community. Sharing this here hoping it can be natively added to IC5 🤞
Snippets below
-----------------------------------
New in structured data: discussion forum and profile page markup
Today we're announcing support for profile page and discussion forum structured data for use in Google Search, including new reports in Search Console. This markup works with Google Search features that are designed to show first-person perspectives from social media platforms, forums, and other communities. Implementing this structured data will help ensure what Search shows in these features is as accurate and complete as possible.
-----------------------------------
Discussion forum (DiscussionForumPosting) structured data
In general, we recommend nesting comments under the post they relate to. If the forum has its own threading structure, use a tree of comments to represent its structure
If it's more linear in nature (for example, an original post followed by a series of replies), nest them all under the original post as comments. Ideally, later pages of content in multi-page forums include the original post with the main page URL
-----------------------------------
Profile page (ProfilePage) structured data
The primary focus of the page must be a single person or organization that is affiliated with the overall website. Here are some examples of profile pages:

Valid use cases:
A user profile page on a forum or social media site An author page on a news site An "About Me" page on a blog site An employee page on a company website Invalid use cases:
The main home page of a store (usually contains lots of non-profile info) An organization review site (the organization isn't associated with the website) -----------------------------------
@Daniel F - Tagging you in case you haven't come across this yet. I know you make THE SEO application and probably have as much SEO knowledge as anyone in the space.