Google Not Rolling Back The Last Helpful Content Update
Google's John Mueller said it is very unlikely that the search company will roll back the last Google update, the September 2023 Google helpful content update. The update is currently rolling out, first touching down on September 14th, and has really wreaked havoc for some SEOs.
John wrote on X this morning, "I really don't see a rollback happening. And, I agree it is sad to see people put their heart & passion into making something and not seeing long-term results, but things can be both heart-made & not as helpful as the makers want."
He added on X, "To be direct, I don't see us rolling this update back. Also, none of this was done to spite anyone - we want to *highlight* fantastic, helpful, unique, compelling, "people-first" content in search, and we will continue to work on our algorithms to move in that direction."
It seems Google strongly believes this last helpful content iteration is doing the job it set out to do.
Does that mean it can't do a better job? Nope, he is not saying that.
John added, "Oh yes, there's still a lot more to do, as always. There's a lot of low-effort stuff online that people don't really want to find. There's also spam, and useless AI-generated stuff. It sounds like you're saying we should turn up the dials more?"
But Google has more work to do, always, he said, "No, I mean, we're not retiring and stopping work. There's always more to do. User expectations grow, people put differing kinds of content online, and separating the awesome from the mediocre is not always trivial. Let me know when AI can take over, I could use a break. :-)"
He added that Google may get it wrong, "I'm sure there are cases where we get it wrong, and I'd love to have those examples if you can get them to me. That said, a lot of "authority" blogs are created by folks who didn't even know which topic to pick beforehand, so I'd struggle to call them real authorities."
And yes, there is more to come like surfacing hidden gems and going after hosted third-party content - all of that is not done.
Here are those tweets:
I really don't see a rollback happening. And, I agree it is sad to see people put their heart & passion into making something and not seeing long-term results, but things can be both heart-made & not as helpful as the makers want.
— John, aka "a total bell cheese" (@JohnMu) September 24, 2023
Actually VERY easy to do that, too… 👀They have to roll it back, there is no way they are looking at each other over at Google Search HQ and saying they did a good job here.Seems like it was done to spite “niche site” owners.— Arielle Phoenix (@ArielleCPX) September 23, 2023
And yet it seems pretty obvious to those of us that look at search results every day 85 doesn’t highlight fantastic or helpful people content.Hell, most “ups” people are experiencing are admitting they use AI content 😅— Joe (Niche Campus) (@NicheCampus) September 24, 2023
If turning up the dials actually improves stuff, that would be great! Right now it’s not helpful. I’m seeing Reddit posts with 3 out of date responses ahead of an actual websites FAQ on its own product 🙃
— Arielle Phoenix (@ArielleCPX) September 24, 2023
Hi @JohnMu, then why are you pushing outdated forum posts or Reddit posts so high on the SERPs? Isn't freshness also one of the important factors? Yesterday, I tried searching for a specific build on one game, and all I've got are Reddit posts from 2017, which are highly outdated
— GucciBlogger💰 (@gucciblogger) September 24, 2023
I did see it, and I agree that if a search term has "reddit", then Reddit should be displayed for that search. But, for other things I do not. Forum/Reddit posts should not be able to outrank high-quality content from a blog that's an "authority" in that specific topic.
— GucciBlogger💰 (@gucciblogger) September 24, 2023
So google is satisfied with how the serps are looking right now?
— Alex Burg (@aburgaburg) September 24, 2023
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