So many of you, including myself, are wondering why Google would make such a big deal of an upcoming update, the helpful content update, when the update itself is not that huge of a shakeup to the search results. There is an interesting back and forth between Glenn Gabe, an SEO consultant, and Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, about just that.
As a reminder, only 20% of SEOs said they noticed any ranking changes related to the helpful content update and I believe a good percentage of that 20% are confused and misattributing the changes they see to the wrong thing - i.e. it is not the helpful content update.
The Google helpful content update so far seems pretty minor in terms of what SEOs and tools are picking up, despite what we all thought would happen. Keep in mind, that the update is not done and we do expect more from it but I don't know how much more we will see with this update being that it should be done rolling out any minute/day now.
Now, Danny Sullivan said yesterday afternoon on Twitter that the helpful content update "is big." He explained it is big in the sense "that it's an important guidance people should pay attention to." "That's why we made such a big effort to talk about it," he added. But "big" does not mean a "huge shake-up," he said; "But that's not the same as everyone claiming it would be a huge shake-up that we did not say to expect."
Danny also said that Google will "keep refining the classifier." "I expect it's likely if we do a big revision, we'd share about that," he added. But with this round, he said "If you went through this initial release and had no change then 1) congrats, lots of content is helpful and that's probably you or 2) if you do have unhelpful content, you shouldn't think that we won't figure that out and consider changing what you're doing." So just because you were not hit this time, you might be next time?
I wanted to share the back and forth because honestly, I found the conversation interesting, because I too, felt this would be a huge shake-up and I was also wrong.
Here are those tweets:
So overall, it looks like the update is really targeting the worst offenders. I wish I would have heard that from the beginning when speaking with Google. Like many others, I thought we were looking at medieval Panda-like impact. It's not (at least with the initial rollout). pic.twitter.com/dztFKVp6nb
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 6, 2022
And as I said last week, this is part of a continuing effort. We'll keep refining how it works. It is a big deal for content creators to keep in mind, which is exactly why we spend so much time communicating about it....
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 6, 2022
So when I asked if this would be like the Page Experience Signal, I heard NO. Not saying it's as weak as that signal, but it's NOT impacting sites unless they have REALLY BAD content. That's fine, but I wish it was explained that way. Right now, people think it's a joke.
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 6, 2022
Yes we were all hoping for a weighted signal. Seems the weighting is off IMO. I'm not seeing any drops for most sites (even sites with some really bad content). I can't tell you how many site owners are breathing a sigh of relief based on the lack of impact. I've heard that A LOT
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 6, 2022
His impression, from my read, is that we'd see some giant huge Panda-like shake-up. I did a number of these interviews and never characterized that the update would be like that. Typically, I think I said we though it would be noticeable and guidance should be considered...
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 6, 2022
That guidance hasn't changed. You should be focused on helpful content. If you have unhelpful content, that's going to be a bad strategy for success, because as we also said, this is a continuing effort. https://t.co/G6g7hvE7P2 pic.twitter.com/u8BdcLzMFq
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 6, 2022
It is big, Glenn, in that it's an important guidance people should pay attention to. That's why we made such a big effort to talk about it. But that's not the same as everyone claiming it would be a huge shake-up that we did not say to expect....
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 6, 2022
It's checklist time. Do you follow crawling best practices? Do you have errors reported in Search Console? How are you doing with page experience? Are you doing things we advise against?....
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 6, 2022
With the helpful content update, it's as we've said, an ongoing thing. If you launch some new site full of unhelpful content, it might spot that soon after launch, and the site might not see a change in traffic because it never really gains....
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 6, 2022
If you went through this initial release and had no change then 1) congrats, lots of content is helpful and that's probably you or 2) if you do have unhelpful content, you shouldn't think that we won't figure that out and consider changing what you're doing....
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 6, 2022
Beyond that, as we said in our post, we'll keep refining the classifier. I expect it's likely if we do a big revision, we'd share about that, release about that and some new forms of unhelpful content would be identified. That's why we've said this is a continuing effort.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 6, 2022
Bottom line. Content producers should review our guidelines and advice about helpful content. If you're not succeeding, and you're not following these, that might be something to reconsider: https://t.co/G6g7hvE7P2
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 6, 2022
So it's big but not big in the sense that it is a huge shake-up in the Google search results. It is big in that this is something Google wanted us all to understand. So big like a page experience update in terms of messaging, but super minor in terms of the impact overall to how the search results changed for most of us.
But expect more, more in the future - maybe not with this specific rollout...
Forum discussion at Twitter.
