December 2022 Helpful Content Update, Rolled Out

Google has released another helpful content update last December 5, which will take about two weeks to complete. Have you seen any changes in your site’s rankings, either positive or negative? Then the helpful content update is most probably the reason behind it. What is Google’s helpful content system, you may ask? The helpful content […]
Marie Aquino
December 7, 2022

Google has released another helpful content update last December 5, which will take about two weeks to complete. Have you seen any changes in your site’s rankings, either positive or negative? Then the helpful content update is most probably the reason behind it.

What is Google’s helpful content system, you may ask?

The helpful content system generates a signal used by Google automated ranking systems to better ensure that people see original, helpful content, written by people, for people, in the search results. The system aims to better reward content that visitors feel they have had a satisfying experience, while content that does not meet the visitor’s experience will not perform as well. Thus, the term “helpful content system” and “helpful content update” whenever an update is made to that system.

The system generates a site-wide signal that Google considers when ranking pages. The system automatically identifies content that seems to be of low value, or not helpful to those doing a search. Since this signal is site-wide, any content – not just those that are unhelpful – on sites that are determined to have high amounts of unhelpful content overall, are also less likely to perform on Search, provided that there are better content on the web to display.

This means that removing unhelpful content in your site can help the rankings of your content and fluff content, can pull down the overall rank of your other content. Quality over quantity, seems to be very important and it is high time to do a content audit on your site to determine content that should be taken down.

Check out Google’s documentation on the Helpful Content System, for more details.