Dunno, but the short almanac-style descriptions of two European cities that I found on Google SERPs just now are replicated on a whole slew of sites (mostly junk sites, at that).

They look like filler content on Google's SERPs. They have even less value as content on landing pages.

Wow, I just searched for my city and exactly the same thing. There's no credit in the answer box and then I searched for the description a whole bunch of spammy websites with the same text showed up.

You know there's a webmaster somewhere claiming their "quality content" is so good that even Google uses it, but they are being outranked by a bunch of scraped spam sites...

You know there's a webmaster somewhere claiming their "quality content" is so good that even Google uses it, but they are being outranked by a bunch of scraped spam sites..

Outranked in what search? In a 300-word query that was copied and pasted from the Google answer box? I wouldn't call that a typical query (or even a real-life query).

As far as the source of Google's World Almanac-style city descriptions are concerned, the fact that the text isn't attributed suggests that it was acquired via some kind of licensing deal or other arrangement (nothing new about that--Google has been licensing content for travel, song lyrics, etc. for quite a while).

These observations drip with irony. Wow.

Most of google's answer boxes are totally worthless. Normally I don't even look at them.

It really depends on what you're looking at.
The travel-related comes from a number of sources, but yes, Wikipedia is a prime source. Some of it comes from an aggregation of other sources, including some "Written by Google," youtube travel guides channels, and hotels with google review panels.

When searching for other things, there's and answer box which often comes from the top answer in the SERPs. Just because it's a top answer doesn't mean it's the best answer.

I tend to scroll past the answer boxes and actually look at the SERPs.

Most of google's answer boxes are totally worthless. Normally I don't even look at them.

As with most things, it depends:

- If you want to know the capital of North Dakota with quick facts and figures), the answer box is useful.

- If you want to learn more than that, you'll want to go to the search results (which makes sense, since search results are the core content of a SERP).

As for Google's short travel descriptions, they're dull at best, and they certainly aren't useful in planning a trip. I think they exist mostly to have something on the page besides facts, figures, maps, and search results.

I think they exist mostly to have something on the page besides facts, figures, maps, and search results.

Actually, there are opportunities for google to run ads on there, such as to hotels and flight deals.

Actually, there are opportunities for google to run ads on there, such as to hotels and flight deals.

Sure, but they need some content to round out the pages. (It doesn't have to be good content, apparently.)

Another description that doesn't have a credit seems to have originated in wikipedia, but has since been replaced by new text on wikipedia. It has been copied and pasted all over the place (it is still credited on one site as being from wikipedia). Interesting that Google does not credit it at all though.