The mission of Google’s helpful content updates has always been to provide valuable and trustworthy content to users. The whole idea behind helpful content was to create the best and easiest way to find dependable information. If your content can meet the needs of users, then it will be rewarded with a higher ranking. The quality of content will determine the performance of your website and its content. Major core updates challenge how well your content aligns with the changes that come from Google.
The first Google Core Update was introduced in August 2022. This was the turning point where “built-to-rank” pages now started to require value. The whole point of this core update was to look for low-quality content and lower its ranking. If the content was written for the sole purpose of ranking rather than providing quality content to your users, then it was negatively affected. Content that lacks substance, originality, or has too many ads will likely get filtered out of the rankings. All updates are made to enhance the user’s experience and ensure that they have access to the content that will provide them the most value. You must always stay updated on your content and ensure that it is of quality, as new updates always refine and comb through content.
This core update was focused on rewarding sites that ,make valuable content that is useful to the audience and meets their needs. Information should also demonstrate understanding and first-hand experience as well as have a clear focus. Specifically making content engaging, which will help with gaining and keeping traffic and visibility for your site. This was the beginning of following core updates, to keep up with new changes. The helpful content system also introduced another practice called the “classifier,” applied to websites with unhelpful content, which also caused a lot of rankings to go down.
Google launched a major helpful content update, which led to another extreme decline of many websites- many lost up to 50% of their SEO visibility throughout the year.
Key trends showed these declines. Sites that lost their visibility are ones that had excessive ads that affect the user’s experience, if they have excessive affiliate links, or insufficient E-E-A-T sites that often lacked names of authors, any indication of author bios, ETC
Although AI is not “off limits,” Google does prefer quality work and always puts a personalized spin on the information you are using. AI doesn’t always provide or create original information, so create content that serves to answer real human questions. This is one of the first core updates to directly target AI -since AI has been accessible to everyone, companies have taken advantage of AI to create content. Many companies ended up doing this,which negatively affected content because it began compromising accuracy and depth. Before creating this algorithm update and standard, a lot of the content found was low quality and offered very little value. If those sites’ articles and content get the spotlight or ranking, how is anyone supposed to find the real quality info?
If you are using AI, you need to make sure it has the quality of an individual author. Edit the content so that it is informative, accurate, engaging, and offers a unique perspective. Google also cracked down on scaled content abuse – pages are primarily generated to manipulate search rankings and not to help people.
This was the most volatile period that a core update has had so far, and it took 2 weeks to roll out. The core update caused a lot of volatility in search rankings, which affected all sectors; no industry was spared.
Google had been rewarding forum websites up until this point. Due to the “hidden gems” portion of the 2023 update, forums had increased visibility. Now, forum sites have experienced a big drop in visibility and steep declines, except for Reddit. Sites creating large volumes of programmatic content using AI to get the content out quickly are negatively affected, especially when they are designed just for SEO. All sites should focus on improving content quality, removing programmatic/low-value pages, and ensuring that content addresses user needs rather than only for search engines.
Read over your content and see where there could be room for improvement. You can use Google Search Console and Google Analytics to see what pages aren’t ranking like they should be. While going through the site, ask yourself a few questions
Can this information solve an issue the user may have?
Is the content current?
Does it cover E-E-A-T?
Make sure that the article includes the author’s name, bio, and credentials. Cite your sources to add to credibility.
Try adding videos, graphics, or more images this can help add to your content and make it more unique. Anticipate questions that your users may ask so that you are already ahead of the game in solving. This will keep users interested and help build loyalty as well.
Core updates now happen multiple times a year, which may feel like a shock to the system. It’s best to keep updated on content changes and stay in Google’s good graces. If your site takes a hit from these changes, take some time to assess what the site is missing and where improvements can be made. Prepare for future updates, as they are a regular occurrence, and stay ahead of SEO trends to adapt to algorithm changes. In conclusion, focus on creating popular and trending content that can solve or inform users.
How to Adapt to Google’s Helpful Content Update The mission of Google’s helpful content updates has always been to provide valuable and trustworthy content to
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