Answer
Sep 30, 2024 - 12:12 PM
It's been interesting watching the world respond to Google's "Helpful Content Update" which started in 2022 and then as Google created the "Helpful Content System" as part of their automated ranking systems....and then after March 2024 core update when Google incorporated their Helpful Content System into their core ranking systems. Google documented the progression within their documentation here. It's also been interesting watching the SEO community respond to these updates, as we've seen quite a bit of commenting about how "Google is ruining search". While Google should obviously fix something if there was any collateral damage of these updates.....Google's communicatation about what they're doing and wanting to do seems very healthy....as they try to create incentives for companies to create "people first content" vs "search engine first" content. Content that actually satisfies the search intent of visitors......vs just playing the "SEO game" of keyword research, competitor analysis...and then trying to play the "me too" game of just trying ot get into the top 10 of search results by "out SEO'ing" other sites...but not actually adding anything new or valuable in the content.
Answerbase has seen our overall customer base take a huge lift over this time period, see what happened to a broad base of our customers through the March and August updates:
And for specific customers that we have access to their Google Search Console reports, we've seen the same lift...see this customer and what happened on July 18th as Google's "August Core Update" started to roll out and continued.
Q&A content is "people first" at it's core....and the best case scenario that we've seen is that through these updates.....our customers how are leveraging the real knowledge within their organization to provide great answers to customer questions.....they are thriving. One customer sees their Q&A content driving 50% of their organic traffic at this stage.
What's interesting, is even customers who were lower performers compared to our average (on average before March 2024 update, Answerbase was responsible for about 8.6% of our customer's organic traffic).....and those lower performers now have a significant amount of their organic traffic driven by their Q&A content. See this customer where the Q&A was only responsible for around 1-2% of their organic traffic and now it's 20% of their organic traffic.
So, Google is simply doing what they've said they would do all along....steering towards quality "people first" content. The issue is, most SEO processes are falling short of the world after the HCU....because their processes are not identifying and sourcing content ideas that are truly "people first".
What Can Websites Do if they WERE Hit by the Helpful Content Update?
Well, Google has clearly communicated that it's not just one thing....you really may have to rethink how you're approaching content creation as a whole. When John Mueller from Google approached this topic there are a couple quotes that really drive it home. See what he says here:
“There is, however, the additional aspect of the “core update” being about how our systems assess content overall, how we consider it to be helpful, reliable, relevant to users’ queries. This does not map back to a single change that you can make on a website, so – in my experience – it’s not something that a website can just tweak overnight and be done with it. It can require deep analysis to understand how to make a website relevant in a modern world, and significant work to implement those changes — assuming that it’s something that aligns with what the website even wants.”
So, it's not just about "trying harder".....you need to really rethink what you're doing and why. We suspect if you've been hit by the HCU your team (or one of your agencies) were creating a decent amount of content where (if you're honest with yourself) the focus f the content creation was heavily weighted towards "will this rank?" vs "do my current visitors care about this?". Answerbase is happy to help you recover and connect you with agencies who know how to survive in a "post HCU SEO" world. Contact us today and we'll help make sure you're taken care of.
Answerbase has seen our overall customer base take a huge lift over this time period, see what happened to a broad base of our customers through the March and August updates:
And for specific customers that we have access to their Google Search Console reports, we've seen the same lift...see this customer and what happened on July 18th as Google's "August Core Update" started to roll out and continued.
Q&A content is "people first" at it's core....and the best case scenario that we've seen is that through these updates.....our customers how are leveraging the real knowledge within their organization to provide great answers to customer questions.....they are thriving. One customer sees their Q&A content driving 50% of their organic traffic at this stage.
What's interesting, is even customers who were lower performers compared to our average (on average before March 2024 update, Answerbase was responsible for about 8.6% of our customer's organic traffic).....and those lower performers now have a significant amount of their organic traffic driven by their Q&A content. See this customer where the Q&A was only responsible for around 1-2% of their organic traffic and now it's 20% of their organic traffic.
So, Google is simply doing what they've said they would do all along....steering towards quality "people first" content. The issue is, most SEO processes are falling short of the world after the HCU....because their processes are not identifying and sourcing content ideas that are truly "people first".
What Can Websites Do if they WERE Hit by the Helpful Content Update?
Well, Google has clearly communicated that it's not just one thing....you really may have to rethink how you're approaching content creation as a whole. When John Mueller from Google approached this topic there are a couple quotes that really drive it home. See what he says here:
“There is, however, the additional aspect of the “core update” being about how our systems assess content overall, how we consider it to be helpful, reliable, relevant to users’ queries. This does not map back to a single change that you can make on a website, so – in my experience – it’s not something that a website can just tweak overnight and be done with it. It can require deep analysis to understand how to make a website relevant in a modern world, and significant work to implement those changes — assuming that it’s something that aligns with what the website even wants.”
So, it's not just about "trying harder".....you need to really rethink what you're doing and why. We suspect if you've been hit by the HCU your team (or one of your agencies) were creating a decent amount of content where (if you're honest with yourself) the focus f the content creation was heavily weighted towards "will this rank?" vs "do my current visitors care about this?". Answerbase is happy to help you recover and connect you with agencies who know how to survive in a "post HCU SEO" world. Contact us today and we'll help make sure you're taken care of.
