Google Search is always trying to give users results that are more useful. In order to do this, we’re putting out what we call the “helpful content update 01 .” This is part of a larger plan to make sure that search results show users more original, helpful information made by people for people. We’ll talk more about the change and some things creators should think about below.
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Prioritize content that serves people
The goal of the helpful content upgrade is to give more points to content where users think they had a good time, while content that didn’t meet their expectations won’t do as well.
How can you be sure that the things you make will work with Google Search Central latest change? by sticking to Google Search Central rules and recommendations and making content for people instead of search engines.
People-first content creators put their audience’s needs first, but they still use SEO best practices to give searchers more useful results.
If you answered “yes” to any of the following questions, your “people-first” plan is on the right track:
- Does your company or website have a target audience that would benefit from the content if they visited you directly?
- Does your content blatantly show first-hand experience and depth of understanding (for instance, experience gained from actually using a good or service or going somewhere)?
- Does your website have a main goal or focal point?
- Will someone who reads your content believe they have learned enough about a subject to aid in achieving their goal?
- Will someone who reads your content come away from it feeling satisfied?
- Are you following Google Search Engine recommendations for both core updates and product reviews ?
Don’t make content just for search engines
Following SEO recommended practices, such as those discussed in Google’s own SEO guide , is still legitimate advice from the team behind the Google search interface. When used on content that puts the needs of readers first, SEO is a useful activity. The content that searchers find unsatisfying is closely connected with content that was produced with search engine traffic in mind.
How can you avoid ranking search engines first approach? If you answered “yes” to any of the following questions, you should rethink how you produce content for your website:
- Is the information intended for search engines, not humans?
- Produce tonnes of articles on different themes in hopes that some may rank well.
- Do you use extensive content automation?
- Do you mostly summarise without adding much?
- Are you writing about trends because you wouldn’t otherwise for your audience?
- Does your content leave readers wanting more?
- Have you heard that Google has a preferred word count?
- Did you enter a niche without expertise because you assumed you’d obtain search traffic?
- Your content may offer a release date for a product, movie, or TV show when none is verified.
How the update affect
All update will begin to be distributed. After it starts and when it has finished rolling out, which could take up to two weeks, we will announce the Google ranking updates website. This update adds a new site-wide signal to the long list of signals we use to rank web pages. Google Search crawler detects content that appears to have minimal value, little added value, or is simply not very useful to users conducting searches automatically.
In the event that there is other content from the web that is better to display, any content—not only problematic content—on sites considered to have relatively high volumes of unhelpful content overall is less likely to perform well in Search. The rating of your other material may therefore benefit from deleting unhelpful content.
Next week, we will launch the “helpful content update” to better ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, rather than content made primarily for search engine traffic. Learn more & advice creators should consider: https://t.co/fgf2TPNIqD pic.twitter.com/xOuX2iVk2d
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) August 18, 2022
How long will it take for a site to perform better once it removes unhelpful content is a normal question that some people would ask. The signal may be applied to the sites specified by this update over several months. The search console classifier for core updates runs continually, enabling it to keep track of both recently released and active sites. The classification will no longer be valid as it has been determined that the unhelpful content has not returned over time.
A machine-learning model is used to fully automate the classification process. Neither spam nor Manual Actions have been taken. Instead, it’s only one of the many new signals that Google considers when ranking material.
This implies that some people-first content on websites flagged as having harmful content may nevertheless score highly if there are additional indications attributing to the helpfulness and relevance of the people-first information to a query. Additionally, the signal is weighted, so websites with a lot of detrimental content can see a higher impact. In any case, make sure you’ve eliminated any unhelpful text and are adhering to all of the Search engine requirements for the best success.
This change first affects English searches all over the world, and we have plans to provide support for more languages in the future. We’ll also make more improvements to the classifier’s ability to identify problematic content over the coming months and introduce new initiatives to better recognize content that puts people first.
