On September 14, 2023, Google announced another update regarding its helpful content system. They said that the update will require around two weeks for completion. This update is anticipated to enhance the classifier system used to determine the content’s usefulness. Edits have been made in Google’s documentation for a helpful content update system. The reference to “helpful content written by people “has been removed, and only “helpful content created for people.” is mentioned.
This blog will present a deeper insight into this update.
What Does A Helpful Content Update Mean?
Before we dive deeper into this content, you must understand what is a helpful content update. Like the name, a helpful content update means a change in how Google determines what concludes as helpful content.
You can read more in our previous blog where we describe in detail about the Helpful Content update.
To continue active search results that are relevant and valuable for all, Google utilized such updates to highlight changes related to the content quality system, which is a part of the search ranking algorithm. The purpose of helpful content updates is to tell what Google prefers at the moment and what will rank on the search engines.
What Has Google Officially Announced?
Google made the announcement on X’s official platform, formerly known as Twitter. According to Google’s post, they said the helpful content update for September 2023 is rolling out after an enhanced classifier. This will take around two weeks to complete. They will be updating their ranking release history page once the rollout is done.
The September 2023 helpful content update is rolling out with an improved classifier. It will take about two weeks to complete. We’ll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://t.co/hgjEkfpbA2
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) September 14, 2023
What Are People Saying About It?
According to Barry Schwartz’s reply to the post, he hinted that this update might be favoring AI-written posts as long as they help people out and provide what they are looking for.
Moreover, in another post, Glenn Gabe acknowledged these changes made in Google’s documentation and said that this targets such sites that rent out their subdomains and directories to smaller ones.
What’s Next?
As the updates are yet in the early stages, no movement has been seen in the search rankings. Gain or loss in the site’s ranking will be anticipated over the coming days. In the meantime, what you can do is monitor your site for the next 2 weeks.
What Are The Updates Made in Google’s Document?
The changes made in Google’s document include:
- New guidance related to hosting third-party content and further explanation of what needs to be done after a helpful content system update.
- New points were provided regarding removing content or changing the date to assist the page in creating reliable people-first content.
What Did Google Say About Third-party Content?
Google has added a section stating that if your main site or subdomains hosts third-party content, you must know that it may be included in site-wide signals that they generate, like the helpfulness of content.
If the content is primarily independent of the purpose of the main site or produced with no close supervision from the primary site, then they recommend that it should get blocked for being indexed by Google.
Has Google Lost Guidance On Machine Generated Content?
According to Google’s previous guidance regarding machine-generated content, they prioritized human-created content. However, this part has now been removed, which signals that Google has changed its ideology about AI content.
The Original Guidance:
According to the original guidance, Google’s automated ranking systems use signals that are generated by Google Search’s helpful content system. This is done so that in search results, people can find original, helpful content written by people, for people.
The Updated Guidance:
Now, there have been some edits in the guidance according to which Google’s automated ranking systems use signals that are generated by Google Search’s helpful content system. So, in search results, people can find original, helpful content created for people.
What Does Google Say About Adding & Removing Content?
Another line that has been added by Google is that if you add a bunch of new content and remove past ones thinking that it may favor your overall search ranking, and make your site look fresh, It will not!.
So what are your thoughts on the latest update, and how would it affect your website? Let us know in the comments below.
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