Helpful Content

This week we covered the ongoing Google June 2025 core update and how we are finally seeing some recoveries with the past helpful content updates, and some core updates. Google…

It has now been ten days since the Google June 2025 core update began rolling out. It will probably take another ten or so days to finish rolling out, but…

This week in search we covered the election day Google Search ranking volatility. We also had a status update on where those helpful content update victims are currently sitting. There…

I’ve been wondering how the majority of sites hit by Google’s September 2023 helpful content update are doing. Glenn Gabe is tracking about 400 of them, so he provided an…

Google held that Web Creator summit yesterday at the GooglePlex, where Google told victims of previous search ranking updates including the September 2023 helpful content update, that a new search…

Google’s AI Overviews seem to not show citations or link to sites that were hit by the helpful content update (and probably core updates), even when you ask the AI…

This Google August 2024 core update has been shaking things up since it began to rollout. We saw some early signs of some sites hit by the September 2023 helpful…

As you know, Google released the August 2024 core update on Thursday and then shortly after confirmed a ranking bug impacting a large number of search results. During that time,…

Since Friday, August 9th, I have been seeing yet another intense spike in Google Search ranking volatility. This is based on the SEO chatter within the communities and of course,…

There are reports that some sites hit by the Google September 2023 Helpful Content Update are seeing small, somewhat tiny, lifts over the past week or so. Again, based on…

Google once again said you can recover from the damage inflicted on your site by the September 2023 helpful content update with the next core update. Danny Sullivan, the Google…

John Mueller from Google responded to a question on Reddit about the likelihood of fixing just 10 pages out of 20,000 pages on a site, how that might help that…

We had more Google search ranking volatility in the middle of the week after some calming for a few days. Google Ads will soon show within the Google AI Overview,…

Google’s John Mueller was asked when can a site expect to recover from the September 2023 helpful content update, assuming the site took all measures to “fix” their site. John…

For the original iTunes version, click here. Google may have had two search ranking algorithm updates, one around May 9th and one around May 3rd. Google began its site reputation…

Google’s John Mueller said again this morning that sites hit by the old September helpful content update or even new core updates can recovery. He said on X and on…

This week, we covered how the Google March 2024 core update finished back on April 19th, and Google forgot to tell us. I also posted the May 2024 Google webmaster…

Google’s John Mueller responded to some questions around why sites hurt by the September 2023 Google helpful content update have not recovered with March 2024 Google core update. He said…

This week, we covered that the Google March 2024 core update is still rolling out 38 days later, but we saw more volatility this week. Just a reminder that the…

As a reminder, with the release of the Google March 2024 core update, the old Google helpful content update is no longer a thing. As we reported, Google has incorporated…

While we have still not seen any sites recover from the September 2023 helpful content update, we have seen sites recover from previous core updates. We were hoping by now…

I’ll start by saying that was a hard title to write and I hope it makes sense. In short, Google’s John Mueller said on X, when it comes to fixing…

This week we covered that the Google March 2024 spam update is done rolling out. Google says to wait for the March 2024 core update to be done before making…

As you know, the September 2023 helpful content update was brutal to many small site owners, bloggers, SEOs and others. Some of these folks were desperately waiting for a recovery…

Google spoke more about the time it takes to recover from a helpful content update and then said it is up to you to decide ice what old content is…

A week ago we wrote about the timing it takes to recover from a Google helpful content update. Then on Friday, Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, added more clarity on…

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, wrote on X, “Another thing to keep in mind is that some of the sites I’ve looked into, where someone thinks they have a…

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, posted again about the timing around recovering from the helpful content update. He essentially repeated what Google said back when it first was announced, that…

I’ve been noticing that Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, has been removing posts from his X (formerly Twitter) account a lot. I also noticed on select posts, John Mueller from…

As a reminder, the Google helpful content system/update is a sitewide algorithm. It looks at your site as a whole when applying its ranking system to the Google Search results….

Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, said on X that just because content is old, it doesn’t mean that content is unhelpful. He said, “Just because something is older doesn’t make…

This is just a reminder that Google uses machine learning to understand if content is helpful or not within the Google helpful content system. This is not new, we’ve known…

Google may have had an unconfirmed Google search ranking update on October 25th and a new one this morning on the 27th. Google provided information on what it thinks is…

Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, has provided examples of unhelpful content types. He also provided examples of strategies writers may use to write unhelpful content. As a reminder, the general…

This is just a reminder that despite Google saying the helpful content update will one day be able to find hidden gems in its search results, it does not yet…

This week in search, Google finished rolling out the September 2023 helpful content update, which seemed to target SEO-first, search engine-first content in a big way. Google won’t be rolling…

Google, at around 3 am ET this morning, announced that the September 2023 Google helpful content update has finished rolling out. It took about 14 days, starting on September 14,…

Over the past couple of days, I’ve seen more chatter of ranking movement for those SEOs initially impacted by the September 2023 helpful content update. I wonder if this is…

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…

Google’s helpful content update is still rolling out, and the SEO chatter is super heated this week, with tons of sites reporting huge drops. But the Google tracking tools are…

When the September 2023 Google helpful content update came out, Google added new information to its documentation around this update. One thing was specific to this documentation change was around…

Google started to roll out the Google September 2023 Helpful Content Update last Thursday afternoon and I’ve been seeing mixed signals about how strong and widespread this update is. There…

We got another official Google ranking update, the September 2023 helpful content update. This week, we had our first post-Google core update tremors and fluctuations. After saying they would a…

Last night, Google began to roll out an update to the Helpful content system – the Google September 2023 Helpful Content Update. What is new is not the part about…

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, posted a PSA on Twitter that you should not delete old content from your site because you think Google Search doesn’t like old content. He…

This week we learned that the upcoming Google helpful content update would soon promote content, not just demote content. Google also pushed out a search ranking algorithm update, but it…

The other day we reported how Google will be releasing an update to the helpful content system that can identify “hidden gems” deep within the web and promote that in…

What a crazy week with Google I/O, where Search took the spotlight for the first time in a long time at the event. Google also may have rolled out an…

Google also announced an upcoming update to the helpful content system (update) that will be released in the “coming months.” This update will find content in hard-to-find places such as…

What a busy week, we had Google confirm it is working on an all-new search engine that uses AI and Bard. There is no ETA for when that will go…

Yesterday, Google announced it made some changes to its guidance around what makes content considered helpful, including adding in good page experience to the equation. Google also made some other…

It’s time for the SEO video recap; in this episode, I talk about how the February 2023 Google product reviews update finished rolling out on March 7th. I spoke about…

A few weeks ago, I reported that Google has updated its help documentation to specify that Google Discover visibility can be impacted not just by the core updates but also…

Gary Illyes from Google said in his Q&A session yesterday at PubCon that while recovering from a Google helpful content update is possible, you can’t always get back to where…

So much to discuss this week in the SEO video recap – just so much. Let’s start with a new confirmed Google update, and the February 2023 Google product reviews…

Google has updated both the Google Discover help documentation and the Google helpful content system page documentation to clarify that Google Discover uses many of the same signals as Google…

After a long slow and paused rollout, Google has said that both the December 2022 helpful content update and December 2022 link spam update are now done rolling out. Google…

This week, the December 2022 Google helpful content update and link spam updates are finally complete after a long, long wait. There was a lot of movement on Wednesday…

I see signals, both in terms of SEO chatter and some of the Google Search tracking tools, of more volatility in the Google Search results. The volatility is algorithm update…

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, said on Twitter on Friday afternoon that the December 2022 helpful content update and December 2022 link spam update may take an additional two weeks…

Welcome back from the holidays, don’t worry; you didn’t miss much. The December 2022 helpful content update and December 2022 link spam update are not done yet. They should be…

This is the last video of the year, and we have more Google search ranking fluctuations and volatility to talk about. Google said the December 2022 helpful content and link…

Google officially confirmed that the helpful content update needs more time to roll out, but now the link spam update is also past the two-week mark, and it is not…

Google told us that we should not expect another Core update in 2022, so you can relax about that. Google said the helpful content update would take longer to roll…

As you know, the December 2022 helpful content update and the link spam update are rolling out now. In fact, it seems like the helpful content update needs more time…

Google’s Search Liason, Danny Sullivan, said that the December 2022 helpful content update would take longer to roll out than originally expected. The update started to roll out on December…

Google’s John Mueller said there is no score or threshold for the Google helpful content update. He said on Mastodon “There is no “HCS score” or threshold at which HCS…

This week we had another confirmed update to the Google helpful content system; it is now global. Google also had a lot of volatility over the previous week, unrelated to…

Google has officially confirmed the launch of the second release of the Google helpful content update/system. It started lightly on December 5th but became noticeable, according to Google, on December…

What a week, we had the launch of the September 2022 core update that started off strong and fast. Google confirmed the helpful content update is done rolling out but…

Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter this morning that word count is not a sign or factor for what Google considers to be thin content or unhelpful content. John wrote,…

The Google helpful content update finished rolling out around 2 pm ET on September 9th. That morning we reported we started to notice more widespread volatility and fluctuations, possibly related…

Today marks the two-week and one-day mark since the Google helpful content update started to roll out and by the time I am writing this (at 5:30 am ET on…

This week, I posted the large Google webmaster report a bit late but then dug into the Google helpful content in a lot more detail…

There seems to be a lot of confusion around the Google helpful content update and if it is “big” or not big. That all depends on if you were hit…

Google’s John Mueller was asked if a spike in crawler activity would be a sign that the helpful content update is rolling out. John said no, as expected because he…