Home
- Blogs
Google’s Helpful Content Update: A New Sitewide Algorithm Update
I hope you enjoy reading this blog
If you need a one-to-one free consultation, contact us now click here
On August 18th, 2022, Google announced a new major search ranking algorithm update on Twitter called the helpful content update. It started rolling out on the 25th of August, 2022 and will take about two weeks to be completed.
Google’s helpful content update, as the name suggests, mainly targets content written for the purpose of improving page rankings in search engines. As a result, it will reward people-first content that connects searchers to helpful information.
The following table contains a detailed presentation of the SEO points Google recommends to improve your website’s rankings, in addition, to the things you need to avoid to ensure your website is not impacted by Google’s helpful content update.
Is the New Helpful Content Update Similar to Google’s Panda Update?
There are many speculations in the SEO community, that Google’s helpful content update largely resembles the Panda update in various ways.
First, both updates focus on improving content quality and overall user experience.
Second, both algorithm updates are designed to demote search rankings, for websites that display low-quality thin content that is copied from other websites. While rewarding high-quality websites with original content and information.
Third, Google’s helpful content update, much like the Panda update, serves as a reminder of the company’s commitment to the E-A-T principles in search quality guidelines. Emphasizing Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness.
Fourth, similar to the Google Panda update, the helpful content update is a sitewide algorithm, that uses machine learning, to determine whether the content of your website is helpful, or satisfying to search users.
Finally, when it comes to impact, the new update is projected to change how SEO professionals develop and execute content, as well as, link-building strategies in the future. Just like the Panda update changed the SEO landscape in the past ten years.
Google’s Helpful Content Update
Dos
– Publish content that your existing and prospective audience finds valuable.
– Create high-quality specialized content that is based on actual experience.
– Develop an overall content strategy, that aims to serve a specific niche market.
– Produce content that achieves searchers learning goals, and helps them learn enough information about a specific topic.
– Share website content, that provides users with a satisfying search experience.
– Develop content in accordance with Google’s guidelines, for core updates and product reviews.
Don’ts
– Publish content, intended to boost your search rankings, rather than benefit your consumer base.
– Create general content on different topics, to improve search results, rather than share expertise-based information.
– Produce a large amount of general content, using extensive automation.
– Produce thin, low-quality, and summarized content, without adding much value to readers.
– Share website content, that capitalizes on trending topics, rather than satisfies the search intent of your existing audience.
– Develop content, that relies on SEO scams, such as hidden text, redirected, cloaking, purchased links, and exchanged links with other irrelevant websites. In addition to secured links from link farms.
How to Recover from Google’s Helpful Content Update?
Now, let’s talk about how your website can recover from Google’s helpful content update. It’s important to understand, that this is a site-wide algorithm, that applies a quality classifier to the entire website, and not just individual pages.
Therefore, if the algorithm determines that your website has a relatively high amount of unhelpful content, the entire website is more likely to be negatively impacted on search engine results pages (SERPs).
To improve the performance of your website in search rankings, Google suggests you either remove low-quality, unhelpful content, or improve it in accordance with Google’s content guidelines.
In addition to that, Google’s helpful content update is a fully automated sitewide algorithm, that uses a machine learning model, to apply a quality signal to websites, over a period of several months.
This means that, if your website was flagged by Google’s helpful content update classifier, for having a high volume of unhelpful content, this classifier is here to stay for several months.
Because, Google needs to make sure that you are committed to delivering high-quality, helpful content to search users. Also, Google needs to guarantee that unhelpful content has not returned in the long term.
On another note, Google definitely doesn’t recommend, that you move the unhelpful content to a subfolder or subdomain. Because, according to John Mueller of Google, you would be missing the whole point of creating content for people, instead of search engines.
However, you can use a non-index, to hide the poor quality, unhelpful content.
This strategy works in the short term. But, ultimately you need to consider how users will interact with your website’s content. And, how this will be reflected in your search performance.
Boost Your Visibility and Optimize Your Website for Google’s Helpful Content Update
In reality, implementing SEO best practices doesn’t start after your website is negatively impacted by the release of a new Google algorithm update.
It should be embedded in every step of your web development, and design process.
At Mash World, SEO is an essential part of everything we do. When we design and develop websites, search engine optimization is a priority. As we look at header tags, page loading speed, mobile friendliness, and serving content on HTTPS.
That’s just the first part of developing great websites. The second part starts with generating high-quality content that satisfies users’ search intent. We ensure content is up to date, and that it adheres to Google’s core updates and content guidelines.
We write content about relevant topics using words users usually search for. We also link your website to other trusted websites, in order to improve your online visibility and increase your organic traffic.
Regardless of the changes, Google’s helpful content update is anticipated to bring to the search engine, our objective has always been to develop websites with content that is consistent with the E-A-T principles.
By publishing high-quality content that establishes expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, we help search engines classify your website as a reliable source of helpful information to search users.
So, if you are looking to improve your visibility, or trying to recover from Google’s helpful content update, feel free to reach out to our team of SEO experts, who will help you create people-first content that is also rewarded by search engines.