Important How is the Useful Content Algorithm Update Impacting Local Businesses?

[Colan Nielsen]

Google has officially released the Helpful Content Update. We are going to track and share observations about how it's impacting the local algorithm and local businesses here.

Please share your observation below.

 

[AndySimpson]

It's been 6 days so far, good summary this morning from Glen Gabe on Twitter...

There's still time, so things could change, but underwhelming so far.

Personally...
"Best thing is take two beers and come back Monday"
Mike "The Legend" Blumenthal

 

[keyserholiday]

Looks like Danny weighed in on the lack of movement.

 

[JS Girard]

It's entirely possible we (as in the users of this forum) are not going to be affected all that much. I think most competent SEOs are perfectly capable of not making actual overoptimized drivel.

 

[seaniaaa]

Besides, this is (I believe) by and large an organic-only update, and those typically don't have much of a direct impact of Google Maps and three-pack results, do they?

Well, on-page optimization does impact local pack ranking. I think the impact will be less so and possibly a bit delayed, but I think it might carry over. Again, unsure and just watching and waiting.

 

[djbaxter]

Google Helpful Content Update So Far Pretty Weak​

by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable
August 29, 2022

Google announced the helpful content update on August 18th and it officially started to roll out on August 25th. I thought this update would hit hard and fast, but so far, and I know it has only been a few days since it officially rolled out, it has been slow to roll out and pretty weak relative to what I thought it would be.

Google also posted a feedback form for this update, despite many SEOs not being worried about the impact.

Both in terms of the SEO chatter within the community and the automated tracking tools, I see very little chatter and movement.

 

[BenFisher]

Had a client plummet in organic, they said they had copied content on the website and all pages were KW stuffed. They are a maid service company.

 

[JoyHawkins]

So far I've heard and seen nothing major. This kind of reminds me of Mobilegeddon. People were freaking out for weeks that they were going to be impacted and then the actual impact people saw was next-to-nothing.

 

[keyserholiday]

Marie Haynes tweeted that with the last product reviews update, people didn't see any movement until the last day of the rollout. So far nobody has seen or noticed any changes. Time will tell.

 

[Gustavo]

Google is requesting feedback on the August 2022 Helpful content update. They have created a form for that purpose: "If you feel that your site was affected by Google's recent helpful content update, and you feel that it shouldn't have been affected, use this form to send us feedback": Feedback on Google's recent helpful content update

 

[seaniaaa]

It's almost like they're testing it out piecemeal before letting it loose full steam.
So. I read into the fact that Google has rolled out a form to give feedback in one of two ways. A, Google thought this was going to be a much more impactful update than it's been and they thought there would be a lot more chaos. Or B, the big one is still coming, it's just not here yet. They're throwing us a target to direct our anger and panic so when we freak out and try to get ahold of Google, that's where they will direct us. Thoughts?
If you take all of this together in context, it's almost like they're worried about the accuracy of the update and they're hoping for feedback early on to see if they're on the right track before they ramp up to full deployment.

 

[keyserholiday]

@Colan Nielsen
I'm seeing today a bump of +20 suspensions within 1-2 hour on listings that are old, obviously legit, stone and brick pizzerias. If you look closer, you can see that those suspended listings have the same pattern - deleted images by google with a "!" on a triangle sign replacing them (example).
Email notification, as usual says "....listing flagged for suspicious activity....please read the guidelines representing your business on Google ".
Ofcourse will follow up with Google on reinstatement and reverifications, but do you have any thoughts if the newly released HCU is maybe associated with the recent GBP posts content policy update and now with this newest wave of suspensions? Maybe a rollout to enforce the changes/updates?

This has nothing to do with the helpful content update. The HCU has nothing to do with GBP or suspended business profiles. The HCU is about web pages and rankings. Also, the HCU update appears to be completed and has impacted low-quality content websites.

 

[KieranThomas]

First noticeable shifts have started to appear for us (all positive) over the weekend. Approx 50% of our clients saw no significant impact as a result of the update as we always create content as high a quality as possible within the time/budget available.

The remaining 50% or so which saw shifts were all noticeable upward shifts in rankings, typically of an average sitewide shift of 10 positions, which would seem to imply pages from competitors have been hit by the update. The most noticeable has been within the financial sector with one of our clients seeing a average gain across all tracked keywords of over 30 positions.

 

[rustybrick]

This article from SEJ touches on that very subject, that the core update might "amplify" the HCU: Google Announces September 2022 Core Algorithm Update

careful with that, it is not exactly how it works, see

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

careful with that, it is not exactly how it works, see

Hi Rusty, not disagreeing with you . I'm not sure if you read the article from SEJ but it likewise includes Danny Sullivan's tweets and covers the potential impact of the combo of the HCU and Core Update. The article goes on to say "Unless Google makes a specific statement that the Helpful Content Update is a major part of this core update, it may be premature to say that it is being amplified in this September Core update."

I placed "amplify" in quotes because the referenced article uses the word "amplify".

 

[seaniaaa]

Marie Haynes tweeted that with the last product reviews update, people didn't see any movement until the last day of the rollout. So far nobody has seen or noticed any changes. Time will tell.

I'm leaning that way Keyser. I'll breathe easy once they say the rollout is complete. I'm trying to be patient until then. If the update is as large and industry-shaping as everyone thinks it may be, it makes sense to me that it will take longer to actually hit while they implement it.

 

[Joey Abna]

Is that page still indexed? If the Helpful Content Update did get it there are tons of articles like that on the web. Something to keep an eye on.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Today, I noticed one of our blog articles completely disappeared from Google search results - 25 Stories From 25 Years - Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO It's a post that lists and links to all the posts in a series. I'm thinking maybe it's been penalized or devalued by the Helpful Content Update because of this question Google posed in their announcement about the update, "Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value?"

Anyone else notice pages/articles like this experiencing lower rankings or completely removed from search results?

Thoughts on how likely this is due to the Helpful Content Update?

Good catch by @Joey Abna. @PaulSteinbrueck, it looks like that page is no longer indexed.

From what I've read and understand, the Helpful Content Update is not supposed to target individual pages but rather the entire site, according to SEJ: "...if Google determines your site is producing a relatively high amount of unhelpful content, primarily written for ranking in search, then your whole site will be impacted. This will not just impact individual pages or sections of your site, but rather, it will impact the whole site."

So, it doesn't appear it is related to the update as Paul's site has almost 300 other pages still indexed.

Maybe check Google Search Console for any errors and/or submit a re-index request for that page?

 

[JoyHawkins]

I'm also seeing changes in ranking in the last few days. Both organic and local pack rankings. Example:

We also had several people start threads about huge drops in ranking in the local pack for service area businesses. I'm unclear if these are related.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Odds on the surprise Sept. core update dovetailing with the helpful content update and boosting it's impact?

This article from SEJ touches on that very subject, that the core update might "amplify" the HCU: Google Announces September 2022 Core Algorithm Update