A Guide to the new Google Search Algorithm: Helpful Content Update for Bloggers & Webmasters

You may have noticed a significant decline in your website traffic lately. You also noticed that some of the pages that were generating consistent month-on-month quality web traffic for your website are also missing from the search results page for the same query. 

You investigate further with several webmaster tools to find out that there is no manual action or SPAM action against your site. What could be the cause? 

Don’t PANIC. It’s Google’s way of saying :

“Hey website owner, we recently updated our ranking signals on search, and your site may have been affected by it. Please fix the issues on your site, and we promise to rank your pages higher again”.

Search Engine traffic is one of the best sources for quality web traffic; losing the position or ranking for your website and pages is difficult for every Webmaster, SEO Specialist, or blogger.  

Therefore, it’s crucial to regularly evaluate your content and make changes to it to ensure that it complies with Google’s webmaster guidelines, policies, and algorithms.

Today, in this guide, we will discover what the “helpful content update” is about and why there has been a sudden drop in your website traffic. We will also check out how you can avoid such actions in the future.

What is Google Algorithm?

Google’s ranking algorithm is a complex system that uses several rules and signals to calculate the pages to appear in search results and which positions to place them based on a particular query from a user.

Google controls about 91% of the web; hence, improving user experience on Search for its users has always been a priority.

Ranking higher on search engines used to be very easy until recent algorithm updates that check for quality page experience, keyword density, quality links, mobile experience, etc. 

The Helpful Content Update, Google’s most recent search algorithm, looks for content originality and promises to reward website owners who provide high-quality content for their readers.

What is the Helpful Content Update

Google’s latest search ranking algorithm: the helpful content signal, was released in August 2022 to help give more credit to publishers, bloggers, web owners, etc. that publish “original” or people-centered content on their websites. 

The new ranking signal penalizes websites that publish content by scraping-off content from other websites, using extensive automation tools to create several web pages and blogs, or simply producing content to rank on Search without having the visitor’s experience in mind. 

Meanwhile, the algorithm will reward websites that clearly show expertise in publishing content by giving visitors a satisfying experience.

For example, you have a webpage or blog with the topic, “how to fix an iPhone error”; however, visitors scroll through the entire page and do not find the fix. 

The algorithm will classify your webpage as “unhelpful” and demote your rank. It will look for pages with possible fixes (helpful content) to outrank you.

How to know that your website has been affected by the Helpful Content update

1. Your website traffic has dropped drastically OR

2. Your website pages cannot be found for specific queries you used to rank for.

What does the Helpful Content ranking signal seek to address?

Here are some content that may be classified as “unhelpful” by the new algorithm.

1. Producing duplicate content in hope that some of them might perform well in search results.

2. Using extensive automation tools to create and reproduce content on many topics.

3. Summarizing others’ works without adding much value to them.

4. Writing on topics where you don’t seem to provide much knowledge or expertise; hence leaving visitors no choice but to change the query and search again.

5. Writing on particular topics because they are simply trending.

6. Publishing content that promises to solve visitors’ problems but does not.

What to do if your website has been affected by the Helpful content update 2022

1. Don’t Panic, audit your content

let’s face it, most webmaster at one point faces issues with algorithm changes and updates. One of the best ways is to remain calm and create an audit book to investigate what pages are affected and what changes need to be made. 

Creating a Google sheet or excel file with relevant columns may make your job easy for you.

2. Avoid copying others’ work without adding any value to it.

Again you should be able to do your keyword research, find out topics to write on, and show expertise on that particular topic. 

Let your content demonstrate in-depth knowledge to show visitors that you know and understand whatever you’re writing, not just copy-paste from other sites. 

The days of copying other people’s content are over. Avoid copying videos and pictures from other sources as much as you can. Canva is a great place to start making pictures for your website.

3. Write for People first, Search engines second.

Avoid cloaking, keyword repetition, and other black hat SEO tactics. The new algorithms use LSI(Latent Semantic Indexing) to monitor keywords on your pages. 

Any attempts to artificially raise your page’s ranking can be detected by Google’s LSI tool. You must ensure that readers can easily read and understand anything you are communicating. This article can guide you on how to create human-friendly articles.

Final Thoughts

Google spends a lot of money on tools and algorithms every year to improve the intelligence of crawlers and bots. Insiders claim that Google adjusts its ranking algorithms about a thousand times annually.

Algorithm updates are inevitable, but anytime significant algorithm modifications are done, the impact will be minimal on quality content. In the meantime, keep updating your website in accordance with Google’s new policies and guidelines.

Read Next

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