Things You Need to Know About the New Google Core Update 2023
With billions of searches processed on Google per day, it is no surprise that they constantly update their systems to make the searches more relevant. With minor changes taking place every now and then, Google Core Update brings a massive change to the company’s algorithm. It happens twice each year, aiming to improve user experience and provide more useful and trustworthy content.
The most recent Google Core Update called ‘The Helpful Content Update’ launched on 22nd August and continued for 16 days to completely roll out.
What is The Helpful Content Update?
The new Google update is primarily launched and focused on “content that seems to have been primarily created for ranking well in search engines rather than to help or inform people” explained Google.
The purpose of this update is to help individuals find relevant and useful content. There are many companies and websites that upload content with stuffed keywords and only want to drive traffic and rank their pages on top. In order to fix this issue, google targets to downgrade these websites and rank websites with more authentic information.
In such a way, even if the website is newly launched, if the content is helpful and up to mark, they have a higher chance of ranking on Google’s first page.
1. Content Created for people
Previously it was stated by Google that content should be written by people; now, according to the new update it states ‘helpful content created for people in the search results’.
Google explained it as an “ongoing effort to reduce low-quality content and make it easier to find content that feels authentic and useful in Search.” This targets content written for search engines over human-first content.
This indicates, that there is no need for the content to be written entirely by humans. Even if the content is somewhat generated by AI, if it’s relevant, user-friendly, and informative, it will be ranked accordingly.
2. A sitewide Algorithm Update
Prior to this update, google algorithms were directly impacting pages of pages. However, this new Google update is sitewide; it won’t only impact pages or sections but the whole site. It demonstrates that if your site is generating a high amount of unhelpful content, your site will harm your site regardless of helpful content on other pages.
Google said, ‘Removing unhelpful content could help the rankings of your other content.’
This new Google update is designed to provide and reward these websites that curate high-quality content for people.
3. Is it reviewed by Experts?
With this new update, google also put emphasis on whether the content is reviewed by an expert or not. The document under the section ‘creating helpful content update’ is modified to
Is this content written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?” under the expertise section.
What to do if you are hit?
Additionally, if you notice that your website or content has somehow de-ranked your website Google explains, ‘If you’re producing helpful content, then you don’t need to do anything; in fact, this system may be good for your site, as it is designed to reward helpful content.’
This means you can revise your content to make it more engaging and informative according to the topic.
Well-written content holds value when the reader is the first priority and not the rankings. According to this update, high-quality content means, the following information:
- Is enough to cater to readers’ answers and queries thoroughly,
- Prove to be valuable to readers; e.g. help them with accomplishing a task or teach them something
- Should be digestible and comprehensible for all readers
Therefore, when creating content, you must keep these pointers in mind.
To sum up, the new update can affect your site if you have more unhelpful content than helpful. You can update and curate content while keeping the aforementioned points in mind. Ultimately, it will improve your website’s SEO. Create fresh, engaging and evergreen content that stays always helpful and relevant to your audience. This way, your content will automatically signal to Google that your information is reading and ranked worthy.
