Google just announced a new and significant algorithm update and called it a helpful content update. This new helpful content update will help marketers target websites with a relatively high amount of unhelpful and unsatisfying content. This means targeting content that looks like it has been created for search engines rather than humans. In short, it will filter all the clutter from the search engines and only put the helpful content on the top.
This new update is about to roll out and could significantly impact the search results. Well, this new helpful content looks like a big deal!
So, we asked our community experts about their take on Google’s new update. We asked them, ‘Google recently announced a new helpful content update; Do you think it would impact ranking results for articles that are more user-centric?’
And here is what they said:
Expert’s Advice on Google’s New Helpful Content Update
Christine Mutia
Marketing Officer at Pala Leather
I’d say this adjustment is aimed at sites that have subverted the system by providing content that isn’t really useful to users but still ranks well due to SEO rather than the quality of the site’s content. This means that poor content no longer mixes well with highly optimized search engines; compelling content and SEO have to work in tandem to produce a positive return.
In their forum post, Google was keen to point out that this upgrade does not render following SEO recommended practices obsolete. When deployed to people-first content, SEO is a beneficial activity; hence, it is reasonable to infer that Google is not opposed to search engine optimization. I’d say if you have concentrated your efforts on SEO rather than developing content for human consumption, this might significantly impact your site.
In addition, it remains to be determined how effective this ranking indicator is. I think newer sites built only for SEO should have the indication added from the beginning. Existing sites may also be impacted if the amount of material published for SEO purposes surpasses a certain level. Sites will be compromised over time and to varying degrees according to the volume of useless information discovered.
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Stephen White
Director at Spaced Digital Ltd
On the whole, no, it won’t impact ranking results for user-centric content. This will be fine if high-quality content answers the user’s query. But, as always with these kinds of Google updates, was it high-quality? That’s the tough question.
I would refer to Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines. They have a large PDF on what they consider a good website and a good page. This is a great place to start.
Also, you can see what Google currently ranks in the top 5 positions in the search results for your target keyword and compare your page to them. Is yours better? Have you added your own unique insight?
One word of warning… about 6 to 12 months ago, there was a big push in the marketing community toward AI-generated content. Sadly, a lot of businesses hired freelancers (or agencies) to produce content, and they may have used AI content tools on your behalf.
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Simon Brisk
CEO at Click Intelligence Ltd
Google’s recent content update had a soft launch on August 25, and it’s a big blow to content writers who had grown to use the high-ranking formulas that the previous search algorithm ranked. Now, Google has rolled out identifiers that flag and demote websites that only host content that would rank higher, rather than content that’s actually helpful for the user.
So, is Google becoming more user-centric? Definitely! I think this update to filter out trash content that still ranked high was long overdue because it had removed the user from the equation. Now, content developers will re-focus on developing helpful content for the users. This would naturally rank higher on Google’s search engine because it will now track the customer churn rate and feedback to rank content.
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George Panayides
CEO at The Digital xx
As the new Google helpful content update rolls out, I can already see some sites boost their organic rankings due to their content being genuine and helpful.
To answer your question directly, yes, I do believe that any articles that are focused on users are going to see a boost over the next few days/weeks due to this update.
Google mentioned, however, that this update will focus on sites as a whole instead of just articles and pages. This may mean any sites with unhelpful content and black hat techniques like keyword stuffing may suffer their entire performance.
As a result of this, other sites may see their entire SEO boosted as their site overtakes others in the rankings.
Sites that are really focused on creating content around the user and not for search engines will benefit the most. The biggest indicators of This will be CTR, time of page, bounce rate, and exit rates.
If you want to see a boost from this update, it’s best to try and work on these metrics.
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Alice Gerwat
Senior Content Editor & Social Media Executive at Magic Freebies
Google’s helpful content update is all about rewarding sites that create content with their users in mind. For years, Google has told the SEO community that we should put our users first and not try to ‘game’ the system with keyword stuffing and other techniques. This helpful content update will be working to figure out which sites have listened and truly put the needs of their audience first.
Once the update has rolled out, if you find you’ve dropped in rankings, it’s worth doing some keyword analysis to assess if each piece of content you’ve created truly answers the goals of each search term you’re aiming to rank for.
Sometimes we can fall into the trap of fixating on a search term and writing content to fill a word count, forgetting to assess the search term for its type (informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional). Once you have that figured out and stick to fulfilling it, you will find you create genuinely helpful content to delight your audience and Google.
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Natasha Page
Founder at ScaleCopy
I think the update will massively impact ranking results for user-centric articles as Google is telling us to focus on people first. The purpose of the update is to reward content that gives visitors a more satisfying experience, and so that should be the primary aim for content creators across the board if they want to be seen as rank worthy.
When writing articles, you should provide the reader with helpful, unique, and rich insights that help them fulfill their query and leave them feeling satisfied with the information they’ve found on your website.
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Hannah Millist
Founder at Twogether Digital
I believe it will indirectly impact the rankings of user-focused content from authority sites indirectly. The update is partly to penalize big sites that are covering content that has little to do with their primary business.
These sites may be penalized, meaning relevant sites to the subject matter with good content answering the user’s query should rank better.
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Dawood Khan
CEO at Pixelied
Google’s helpful content update would certainly give a boost to more user-centric articles. In simpler terms, its newly updated algorithm will very much favor content created primarily for users versus content created primarily for SEO. This is a welcome update since it helps boost brands and sites that are genuinely committed to producing helpful content for their audiences.
No one doubts the power of SEO to boost the visibility of legitimate businesses, but over the years, it has been gamed by SEO experts, many of whom are just using SEO as an end to itself instead of a means to a greater end. This new update would mean that authenticity and genuine credibility will become even bigger considerations in ranking content for the SERPs
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Dan Trichter
Co-Founder at Accessibility Checker
It seems like Google is set on making search more friendly for users by sifting “search engine-first content” articles with the new helpful content update. Content created to rank well in search engines doesn’t necessarily translate to being friendly for users and actual humans reading them. So, in theory, this update should positively impact ranking results for user-centric articles.
Navigating search engines only to be greeted by unhelpful, ad-filled landing pages defeats our aim for accessibility and a seamless web experience. Hopefully, with this new update, users can much easier access the information they need and can actually use.
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Ariel Sheen
Account Manager at THAT Agency
Google’s helpful content update will positively impact the search engine ranking of articles designed with the user’s experience in mind. Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines indicate that the helpful content update is informed by the data from around 14,000 user tests. These tests inform how Page Quality is determined.
This, combined with their advances in assessing content quality, search intent, etc., will result in content produced not just for the purpose of raising SERP but that which provides greater value to users rising in search rank.
In other words – content structured as a knowledge base will likely be valued higher than content packed with keywords dumped into unstructured blogs.
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Erin Zadoorian
CEO at Budpop
The aim of Google’s new helpful content update is to push articles that are written by and for humans higher and hopefully take away the spotlight from SEO content that are riddled with search-friendly keywords but offers little help to actual users.
With this in mind, I hope this would garner positive results for user-centric articles in terms of their ranking. Users and consumers These days are now focused on more than just what product they’re getting. They want a positive seamless experience to come with it. This update might just help with that.
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Samantha Boartfield
Founder at JB Brandon
This most recent update, if anything, has served as a reminder to all digital marketers of Google’s main objective: to match the user’s search the intent with the best, most valuable content to end their search journey.
I’ve seen too often people getting trapped by all the nuances of SEO (off-page, on-page, technical, etc) and forgetting the most important detail — that you have to create user-centric content that delivers. The rest is all a necessary evil to rank among millions of articles, but it’s important to never lose sight of the main objective.
This most recent Google update will no doubt prove that user-centric, personalized content will triumph, and those that lost sight of this will, unfortunately, have a lot of work to do.
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Deepanshu Bedi
Co-Founder at Exhalewell
In terms of impact, Google’s move to push helpful content to the forefront would most likely result in positive rankings for user-centric articles. If this update works as it should, then sites that are pushing keyword-heavy content might get shaken up. Creating SEO-friendly content is not a bad thing, however, there are articles that focus too much on ranking in search engines but offer little to no help to actual users and humans who are looking for information.
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Deniz Kuran
Head of Marketing at Idiomatic
No. Because if you were doing your job and writing good content in the first place, then nothing should change. There could be gained to be made if low-quality competitors were ranking above you, but sites already following Google’s guidelines and SEO best practices shouldn’t see significant changes.
However, if you’ve been writing content for SEO over the user, or not doing your research, you very well might be affected, and it’s time to level up!
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Nadav Harari
Head of SEO at Venture kite
English content
–Helpful, up-to-date, relevant, and unique content Websites that don’t have too many unhelpful pages.
It’s possible that “people-first,” helpful content won’t demonstrate as strong a positive impact as expected because the update is combined with other ranking signals.
I informed this opinion based on the latest from Google on the topic, plus the performance on our 12 websites.
Overall, the content update isn’t Google’s final word on the topic — they plan to refine how the classifier detects unhelpful content over time. Plus, the rollout is ongoing and won’t be complete for another two weeks.
*According to Google:*
1. This update adds a new site-wide, automated signal considered among many other existing ranking signals from Google.
2. The update currently only impacts English searches.
3. Some “unhelpful” content might still rank well, as long as other signals indicate the content as relevant and “people-first.”
4. Sites with a lot of “unhelpful” content will notice a more negative effect.
All our websites have user-centric articles in different niches, from food and lifestyle to programming and tech. So far, our sites have shown some organic growth, but we’re unsure if it’s related to the update. It’s worth noting that the Semrush sensor has shown SERP volatility at a normal range of around 3.2 in the past week.
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Calvin W
Founder at Moosoft
Recent Google semantic search improvements like RankBrain and Hummingbird made substantial changes to the algorithm. Now, your preferred search engine examines each search term and makes an effort to discern the user’s intentions. Pages that are significantly user-centric will be promoted by Google’s new update on helpful content.
As a result, articles that provide a superior user experience and are more beneficial to readers will perform better in search engine results. All articles will benefit from this move, which will motivate publishers to produce more user-focused content.
However, it is important to keep in mind that articles with strong rankings will probably be more affected by this adjustment.
For instance, if a piece of content is already in the top 10 outcomes for a specific query, this update might enable it to climb to the top 5, or possibly the top 3.
Semantic SEO and search intent go together, and Google’s new update adjustment unites them.
It gives users pertinent search results, lowers bounce rates to pertinent pages, boosts relevant page views, and helps marketers with actual information to take over the featured snippet position in Google Search instead of a bunch of keyword-hungry interlopers.
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Aima Irfan
Editor in Chief at Inside Tech World
Google recently announced a new helpful content update; Do you think it would impact ranking results for articles that are more user-centric?
The all-new Google content update does not invalidate the idea of following best SEO practices. However, creating more user-centric content that satisfies visitors is going to be ranked better. Google wants websites to create content that satisfies the visitor experience.
There is a significant correlation between content created particularly for search engines and unsatisfying visitor experience. The idea is to avoid low-quality and unoriginal content from ranking higher in search results.
If the content is ‘people-first’ content with low quality, it still has the chance to rank well according to the new update. Regardless, for better success, it is recommended to remove all the unhelpful content from your website.
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Sohaib Hasan
Founder at mytechissolved
The impact of Google’s new Helpful Content update on ranking results will vary depending on the content and circumstances involved.
However, overall it seems that user-centric articles are likely to receive a boost in rankings due to their greater engagement potential.
This is because user experiences can be very persuasive when it comes to determining how relevant or important an article or website is.
In this current update, Google is asking users in a short survey/polls, especially on mobile search questions like How easy was it to find what you wanted on this website & things of that nature?
So in a nutshell Quick, Easy Answers are presented to the user & Fast that’s what I personally have experienced with the so-called Helpful Content update.
However, other pertinent SEO ranking factors like strong backlink profile, page speed, site architecture & topical relevancy will still play a major role.
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Emily Hutton
Editor in Chief at Image Restoration Center
I believe that every piece of content is helpful to someone if it is written to be relevant to something and if it contains meaningful information about that topic. So in this case, I think the ranking impact would be significant for those who write all their content for humans and not only to please Google bots by feeding them SEO practices.
However, it will need some analysis as most sites write on different niches and sometimes choose topics because they will do well on Google. So maybe they’ll get punished too even if they write user-centric articles.
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Zhanna Sedrakyan
Director of Operations Management at Contact Consumers
I consider rankings to be relative. A piece of undesirable content may see a dip in its ranks, but only if the competitor’s content is seen as desirable. This update will affect websites as a whole, not just certain pages or posts. If a website is filled with irrelevant or irrelevantly repeated material, it will likely suffer in search engine rankings.
Therefore, sites need to strike a balance between content that performs well from an SEO standpoint and content that is primarily aimed at humans if they want to score high against beneficial content updates. Not doing so will result in severe drops in rankings.
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Agnes Zabawa
Marketing Manager at Insurancenavy
If articles on any website will be more user-centric and more engaging as per the user’s interests then it is obvious that there will be a greater number of clicks on that link.
If a person finds any relevant information in the form of their desired keywords on any blog/article website then those people are more likely to visit such websites which will automatically impact the ranking results of that website on the Search Engine Result Page of the user interface. Using a tool like *Ahrefs* helps in identifying the people or websites that consistently link to yours. They already believe your website is a good investment, so maintain the relationship to get the most out of it.
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Stacy Lewis
Owner at Eternity Modern
Google’s announcement of a new content update has led to speculation about how this change will impact the ranking of articles in search results. On the surface, it seems like this change could benefit more user-centric articles, as they would be less likely to be buried under low-quality or unoriginal content.
However, it is important to keep in mind that Google’s algorithms are constantly evolving, and it is difficult to predict how this particular change will affect the visibility of different types of content. It is likely that some experimentation and adjustment will be necessary to ensure that this new update does not unduly impact user-centric articles.
In any case, Google’s announcement is a reminder that content creators need to be aware of the ever-changing SEO landscape and adapt their strategies accordingly.
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Lucas James
CEO & Co-Founder at Agency Go
So recently google announced a new big ranking algorithm update that is, a helpful content update. This was launched on august 25th. It targets content that ranks well in the search engines and is not used or provides any kind of information to individuals. It tackles the content that was created for the sole purpose of ranking well.
So those who rank well for creating user-centric content are on the safer side. This is a sitewide algorithm update, so it is going to affect the whole site. Google did not mention any penalty for the users who do not create user-centric content but this update seems like a penalty to them. Many people think that it is a core update but it is not.
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Ronen Ben-Dror
Director, Client Development at Blue Valley Marketing
Google has worried many content creators by launching its new update- helpful content update. But there is nothing to worry about because this update is not going to impact those who create user-centric content. Instead, it is going to help them in ranking well on search engines.
This update system is automated, so it is regularly going to evaluate the content and weed out content that does not provide any information to the individuals and is created for the sole purpose of ranking well. This algorithm is continuously observing the content and assigning scores to it. So if you fix your content today, that does not mean you can recover your site tomorrow.
There is a validation period, where google observes the type of content you create and after that, it puts your content back to the way it was.
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Chelsea Cohen
Co-Founder & Content Creator at SoStocked
Google recently announced a new helpful content update. Do you think it would impact ranking results for articles that are more user-centric?*
Google’s recent content update is targeted at content that abuses search algorithms to rank higher, and while it won’t directly impact user-centric articles, it will help push them up the rankings by devaluing other articles that cheated their way to the top. I love the fact that Google finally made its move at this, and I do believe it will help organic, user-centric articles to come out on top and start dominating the search results.
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Maxime Legardez
CEO and Founder at Maki
When Google announced that it would be making changes to how it ranks content in search results, many people wondered how this would affect more use-centric articles. After all, if the goal is to reduce the amount of low-quality or unoriginal content, it stands to reason that articles that focus more on providing value to readers would be less likely to rank highly.
However, it’s essential to keep in mind that Google’s ultimate goal is to provide users with the best possible experience. As such, it’s likely that articles that are more user-centric will continue to rank highly in search results. This is because Google knows that these types of articles provide value to readers and help them find the information they’re looking for.
In other words, while the changes Google is making may impact the ranking of some articles, it’s unlikely to significantly affect articles that are more user-centric.
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Social Champ would like to thank all the community experts for taking the time and sending in their responses! We will be back with another healthy discussion over trendy topics super soon.
