There are few Google updates for which Google provides no detailed information. They come, they go!
Some website gets the impact, some don’t.
But there are few Google algorithm updates, for which Google announce that they have rolled out a broad core update which will be complete by the next few weeks.
But rarely, in a few of hundreds, there is some Google update on which Google provides information in advance that they will be rolling out updates by some specific date.
For such important algorithm updates, Google only not only provides technical documents but also announces publically through Twitter or other mediums.
From such important updates, the SEO industry’s direction changed, like Panda and Penguin updates.
Similarly, Google is now launching its new update “Helpful Content Update”, this update is going to be a site-wide signal.
This means that these update it is going to impact the complete website and not just some percentage or pages of the website.
Here we are going to know about
- Why Google is launching this update?
- What this Helpful Content Update from Google is?
- Which kind of website it will affect?
- What kind of impact it will bring to the SEO industry?
- What changes do you need to do as a website owner if your website gets affected by this?
Let’s begin
Why Google is launching this Helpful Content Update?
In the early 2000s, most people were using article spinner software, through which they are creating articles using synonyms of words and generated articles that are unique but had no readable values.
The content created using article spinner where mostly non-readable or contains any real value.
So to save the website’s content quality, Google in the year 2011 launched the Panda update.
With the help of this update, Google was restricting and penalizing website that uses spun content.
SEOs and webmasters from those years understand how Google updates impact the website and work on improving its search results.
But as time passes, things were getting more normal with SEO, people started to establish new trends.
People have started to use AI Content creators more often rather than Article Spinner.
Now many so-kind SEOs have established some imaginary figures, the safe percentage of keyword density; 1500-2000 words are now being suggested as the best content that can rank; Number of tags (H1, H2, and other), type of conclusion need to write. These tricks are common today, and most webmasters boast of ranking the website using imaginary parameters.
But in the whole process, people who are visiting the website are nowhere; no one is thinking about them.
A huge percentage of websites on the internet today are being created just to get ranking, gain traffic, get ad impressions, get some faulty clicks, and generate some revenue.
To tackle such a website, Google is now launching this update in 2022 after eleven years of Panda updates and has named this update Helpful Content Update 2022.
The tagline which google has given to this update is
“More content by people, for people in Search”
The obvious meaning of this is that Google wants to remove over-SEO optimized content from Google search results.
Contents that are only written and published for the purpose to get high rank and get more traffic. Google is not just demanding unique content and fresh content.
Many people say that even after writing much unique and fresh content; but still their content doesn’t get indexed. All these things we will be discussing further in this article.
What is Helpful Content Update 2022?
The update’s name says “Helpful Content”; making it more obvious that Google will give ranking to a website that actually helps the reader in some way.
So what kind of update does Google consider helpful?
You must write content from your knowledge and your experience in the field and niche.
Many content creators are writing the article by taking someone’s else article as a source and not generating any value, instead using someone else input as their own input.
Like
Nowadays many tech bloggers are creating humongous content on products review, every other blogger is reading reviews from different tech bloggers and generating content on their website without actually having experience of using the product.
All they are doing is writing content only for the purpose to generate traffic since the product reviews get views.
But for Google, it becomes a problem, since you haven’t used the product yourself, so the content which you have created is not helpful and unique.
The purpose behind writing the content is just to publish a new page on your site and generate traffic.
So as per the Helpful Content Update, you need to create content on topics with which you have knowledge and experience.
Your website must have a purpose.
As per Helpful Content Update, your website must have its unique purpose, don’t just create a website to gain income from Adsense.
For example
If your website is for a dental clinic; then the purpose of the website is to showcase your dental clinic services, facilities, and the kind of offers you provide.
In case you have a blog like Search Engine Land, where you explain and publish information about search engines, search engine ranking, or search engine marketing.
But then, many blogs contain travel-related articles, news, health-related article, tech-related item, fashion related information ( multiple kinds of information).
The purpose of such websites is to gain more traffic, just by adding more content related to every topic which can bring more and more views only and get ad revenues.
Give your website visitors complete information.
Helpful Content Update suggests that you need to provide your website visitors with complete information and satisfy them with details.
This third point is connected with the two points
- Write content from your knowledge and your experience in the field and niche
- Create a website that has a unique purpose.
As we discussed earlier if you have serious experience & information about your field then only you can create good content on relevant topics.
If you have used a product yourself, then only you can write detailed articles and reviews, so that your website visitor gets complete information.
But in case, users after visiting are not getting real information, and still, they are surfing through another website to find information, then what is the need of your website to be present on search results?
Therefore, always create detailed content, and always write an article that solves the problem of your organic visitor.
Further, follow all ethical writing guidelines.
So the above-given point we described what helpful content update is, but now let’s learn
Which kind of website will get punished by google after the helpful content update?
Websites that are using content created in bulk by AI article generator
AI content generators are having a lot of buzzwords these days, whatever name of the software (AI Content Writer) you are using, all these articles created with such tools, will hugely get impacted by this update.
Websites that are covering random topics.
If you have a single website that are covering random topics such as travel, tech, fashion, food, politics, clothing, sports, etc. and your website is full of such content, then it’s a possibility that Google can punish your website with Helpful Content Update.
Blog/Site which is using copied content.
Blogs that are not necessary for usage but are available and using copied content or similar content such as quote websites, calculators, privacy policy generators, job announcements, etc. can get a negative impact.
Maybe you are rewriting content on your own, but also your website can get penalized. Only if you are creating websites that are having real-time analysis, and have some new addition on the topic, then only your website will survive.
Other than that if you are generating a general-purpose blog/site only for Adsense approval then your blog is under threat of this update.
Websites that are using clickbait
If you are creating a clickbait topic in the title, like 5 cures for cholesterol control, but in the article, you are only giving homemade remedies that every other website is having, and not providing any real use to the reader, then your website will get effected by this update.
Website having unnecessary longer content
If you are making your content longer unnecessary, just to achieve the parameter of 2000 or 3000 words; then also your website get affected by Google Helpful Content Update.
What kind of impact it will bring to the SEO industry?
The Helpful Content Update has two important features:
This is a site-wide update.
The entire website will get hit by this update. For more understanding;
If your website is having 1000 pages, in those 300 pages you have used AI-generated content. Then google is not only going to remove the 300 pages from SERP but all the 1000 pages from the search engine result pages.
Even if Google finds some pages on your website violating Helpful Content Update, then they will penalize the whole website.
This update will run continuously.
Google Helpful Content Update is not going to bring any manual penalty to the website since it’s an algorithm-based automatic update.
Whichever website Google system finds violating the update, they will automatically get penalized.
This update is going to run continuously, so in the future also, if any new website or old website which is available on the internet, and uses AI-generated content, or low user satisfaction content; this update will remove such websites from SERP.
Google Helpful Content Update will start rolling out next week and will get completed rolled out by two weeks.
How to protect your website from Helpful Content Update 2022?
If your website is using AI-generated content or has random topic content on your website, then you must start removing that content from your website.
In case this update penalizes your website, then also your website will take months to recover from it.
Website owners that have niche-based sites/blogs with manually written content; don’t have to worry about any penalty.
Even if your website gets affected by Helpful Content Update, then also you can recover it from there.
All you need is to remove the AI-generated content, and continuously add valuable and quality content to your website.
With continuous work on your website, you can recover from it; in a few months.
So, this is a quick overview of an upcoming SEO tsunami named Helpful Content Update. Start doing SEO audit, analyze your content now and start removing it from the website.
