How Google’s Helpful Content Update Will Affect the SEO World

Google’s helpful content update, released in late August 2022, is a new Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) ranking algorithm that will evaluate the quality of website content site-wide on a regular basis. This update is part of Google’s efforts to deal with low-quality and unhelpful content found in search results and focus on creating people-first content. Many websites have content written specifically for SEO, so they can rank higher in search engines without helping or educating people. With over 1.9 billion websites online, Google’s latest algorithm update is bound to have a huge impact on the internet.

In the latest update, sites that have created content primarily for search engines to rank high or make thin content that adds zero value for the visitor will be heavily impacted. The helpful content update will see a significant reduction in the amount of content generated by AI on sites as well.

Initially, only English language searches will be impacted. Still, Google plans to expand this update to target additional languages in the near future. As of now, the helpful content update algorithm will only affect Search in the Google Network (Display, Shopping, Video, and Discovery will remain unaffected for the moment).

The algorithm update will target any content that is unhelpful. Content that offers no value and makes the searcher have to search again to get better information from other sources will be deemed as unhelpful content and the site will lose its visibility and ranking. At the same time, Google will prioritise the more relevant and helpful results, rewarding sites with helpful content a higher ranking on the SERPs.

If your content does not solve the searcher’s intent or is considered unhelpful by Google, a site-wide signal known as a classifier will be imposed on your site. The classifier impacts your whole website ranking performance even if only one of your site page’s content is detected as unhelpful. The signal is site-wide therefore, your entire site ranking will drop drastically. A lower ranking on the search result page has a massive impact on your website visibility and ability to attract traffic.

In short, you will no longer be able to write SEO-specific content that only serves the purpose of ranking high in the search results. The newest update will affect all current content and any future content going out on your website. While SEO is still a hugely important factor to include in your content, you must concentrate on creating useful content for your visitors. According to some discussions on Reddit, SEO specialists will have to rethink strategies to adapt to the latest Google helpful content updates.

It is also worth noting that Google will not notify you which pages have unhelpful content, so you must ensure that your entire site provides value and meets the searcher’s intent. This will present a bigger challenge: checking all your content to ensure it meets what Google considers helpful and relevant.

To prevent a reoccurrence, you will need to review all content on your website and determine what content you are either going to remove from the site or improve to make it more helpful.

As the update continues to develop, Google has provided guidelines you can go by when trying to improve your content:

• “Are you mainly summarising what others have to say without adding much value?”

Publish helpful content by adding your own first-hand experience on the topic. You can add value by incorporating detailed explanations, high-quality photos, and videos.

• “Does your content leave readers feeling like they need to search again to get better information from other sources?” 

Ensure your content provides enough information about a topic to help visitors achieve their goals. Think of the answers the searchers are looking for in your content.

• “Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise but instead mainly because you thought you’d get search traffic?”

Make sure you are talking about a subject you have first-hand knowledge of or are an expert in. Don’t talk about subjects that have nothing to do with your business.

• “Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?” 

In the age of the Helpful Content Update, you should avoid using AI copywriting to write your content. Google can usually detect AI in text.

In summary, with Google’s helpful content update, you need to stop creating that is focused on ranking in the search engines. You are not writing for Google; you are writing for humans. Despite the fact that SEO is an ever-changing field, this latest update will certainly be a game changer. In the coming months, this will be an interesting area to watch.

If you have any concerns about your SEO strategy or simply want to get it off the ground, then get in touch with our digital marketing team.

• Google’s helpful content update is part of its efforts to deal with low-quality and unhelpful content found in search results.
• Creating SEO-specific content to only rank high in the search results will hurt your website’s ranking on SERPs with Google’s newest update. 
• A site-wide signal will be placed on your site if Google finds any content that is unhelpful and does not answer searcher intent.
• Google will not notify you what pages on your website have unhelpful content. This means you must check your entire site and determine what content to keep, delete or improve. 
• Create content with a people-first focus. Write for humans instead of Google.