Google’s Helpful Content Update: What You Need to Know

What is the Helpful Content Update?

This update is designed to limit ads from appearing next to irrelevant, misleading, or low-quality content on the web. For example, if a search for cars triggers an ad for a weight loss product, the Helpful Content Update will prevent that ad from appearing on the results page. The update also improves how well Google understands synonyms and related queries, which should lead to fewer irrelevant results pages when people are searching. These changes will be rolling out globally in the coming weeks.

How Does this Impact Your SEO Strategy?

The Google update is designed to make Google more helpful by providing more high-quality, trustworthy content in search results. With this update, the intention is for users to find information that meets their needs with less effort. It also aims to reduce the likelihood of users being shown irrelevant or low-quality content.
This means if you publish articles regularly, your site will likely be less impacted than sites that do not post regularly. However, frequent publishing does not guarantee a positive impact from this update; if your content doesn’t meet Google’s higher standards, it could still be negatively impacted.

Is This A Major Change Or Just A Minor Tune-Up?

Google has announced a new update that will change the way Google ranks content. The update is a global one, which means it impacts all of Google’s search results. Google will now rank results by helpfulness instead of relevance. This is a significant change because it goes against what many people have come to expect from using the internet–specifically using google for research. The internet has been a place where we can find answers in seconds, and this new update creates more questions than it provides answers.

Should I Still Do Link Building?

The Google update is designed to improve search quality, and it seems that the best way to do this is by removing spammy links from the equation. It’s not perfect, but it will ultimately lead to better results for searchers. That being said, it does seem like this update has led to some sites experiencing a drop in organic traffic. So if you see a drop in traffic, you may want to reconsider your link-building strategy (or try something else entirely).

Where Can I Find More About This Google Algorithm Change?

You may have heard about Google’s recent algorithm update if you’re a content creator. The update was designed to make Google more helpful by surfacing content more likely to answer people’s queries.
Google gathers information in various ways, including how users interact with search results and how they act on the Websites displayed in those results. It also uses data from third-party providers of browsing activity and other sources like Wikipedia pages. When it identifies content that meets a user’s needs, it will prioritize these results so that they appear higher in the list of possible search results. This update could potentially cause issues for website owners who rely on traffic from Google and are unsure what this means for their business.

How to Strategize Your Content From Now On?

Here is how you should consider strategizing your content henceforth

Focus on helpful content

The Google algorithm update, introduced in October 2017, is meant to prioritize high-quality content and demote low-quality content. The update will not specifically look at the number of backlinks or keywords used, but it will penalize sites with low-quality or spammy content. The update rewards sites with high-quality information that experts manually create. Sites can no longer rely on short posts and keyword stuffing for quick rankings. Instead, they need to provide in-depth articles that are substantive and helpful.

Optimize For Mobile-First Indexing

In the past, Google has always had a desktop version of the internet which meant that their indexing was based on a desktop browsing experience. In 2015, they announced that they would start developing mobile-first indexing, meaning they will base their index on what is most relevant and present in a mobile browser. This means that any content which appears above the fold in a mobile browser will be indexed, and any content below the fold will not. If you don’t have your call-to-action or other important information before scrolling, you could lose traffic and conversions as your page loses rankings and doesn’t show up when someone searches for your product or service.

Add Structured Data Markup to Your Pages

To ensure the information on the web is both discoverable and credible, Google is constantly improving the quality of its search results. One change that will soon roll out is an update to its algorithm designed to surface more helpful content. The goal of this change is to show you more pages that are relevant and trustworthy. For this update to work as intended, it will rely on a new type of machine learning called reinforcement learning, which enables our systems to learn from mistakes without human oversight or intervention.

Show Users What You’re About in the Snippet

It’s not a secret that Google has been getting more strict with what they allow on their search engine. If you’re trying to get your business found online, it’s in your best interest to avoid the wrath of Google. One recent change is the Helpful Content update, designed to show users helpful content for their search instead of generic pages about your company. This update will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks, so it would be wise to be proactive and ensure that you follow these guidelines from day one.

Use AMP For Fast, Reliable Mobile Pages

Unlike the other search engine updates, such as Panda and Penguin, Google’s latest update is focused on helping users find what they need faster. In a blog post, Google announced that it would use machine learning to determine the content quality and rank pages accordingly. This is done by looking for signals (or indicators) and then ranking sites based on their trustworthiness. This new update aims to give users more beneficial results, making it easier to find exactly what they’re looking for when they search online.

Avoid Publishing Mass Generic Content

The internet is a vast and diverse place, with millions of websites and billions of pages. It can be hard to keep up with everything online. A lot of this content is often duplicative, irrelevant, or even misleading. It can be difficult for people to find what they’re looking for when the search results are polluted by low-quality sites that publish clickbait or generally seem untrustworthy. This is why we’ve been working on an update called Helping content rank better in search.

This new algorithm looks at how useful a page is and how trustworthy it seems rather than just how many times it has been shared on social media.

Final Thoughts

The update is a way for Google to weed out low-quality pages and surface higher-quality content. This helps users find what they need faster. It also encourages people to create content that will be useful for others, which benefits the web at large. Google understands the importance of giving people good information and wants its search engine to help them find it as quickly as possible.