It seems like Google Search is now giving its old Google Groups forum area a massive ranking and visibility boost in the Google Search results. This started a couple of months ago and it may be related to Google surfacing more hidden gems around then? I am not sure.

Brian Freiesleben posted about this on X saying, “Google Groups conversations are indexed and can rank well. Maybe this is related to Google’s recent preference for UGC in SERPs…you can see a huge jump in rank starting this October.”

Here are some of the charts and screenshots he shared:

Glenn Gabe took a quick look and noticed the uptick as well:

And so did Lily Ray:

I am not sure exactly what is up, but this does raise your eye brow a bit…

Forum discussion at X.