Navigating Google’s Helpful Content Update

Seen as a way of ensuring the cream really does rise to the top, Google’s Helpful Content Update (HCU), was an update that took place in August of 2022.

We’ll dive into more detail but essentially, the HCU was designed to ensure that high-quality content, which was written for people, not search engines, earned the greatest visibility in the search engine results pages.

Now, because the word ‘helpful’ is so subjective (one person’s helpful is another’s useless), there has been a lot of consternation and debate about this new update, which was built as Google’s biggest since the rollout of Penguin in 2012.

So here, we’ll look to clear those muddy waters, dispel the fears, and provide clarity about the HCU, including how you can benefit from it (after all, Google is looking to reward good content so as long as you do that and stick to some principles, you’ll succeed in the long term).

At Embryo, we have seen the positive impact that expert content can have on newly launched and existing sites and work to help brands, regardless of industry, meet Google’s requirements so that their search engine rankings, and organic traffic, increase.

To learn more, read on, then, why not get in touch with our digital marketing experts by phone at 0161 327 2635 or email at [email protected]?

What is Google’s Helpful Content Update?

Essentially, the HCU is Google’s way of ensuring that work that goes onto websites is written with humans at the forefront, not just algorithms.

It was, and remains, all about making sure that high-quality, unique content appears at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) over blogs and pages that use nefarious tactics and whose sole purpose is to just rank on page one, as opposed to providing a great user experience.

The HCU is there to weed out low-quality content on desktop and mobile devices that is unhelpful and doesn’t satisfy the user’s intent when they made that search, be it video content or text-based.

This rollout wasn’t a denigration of tried-and-true organic SEO tactics, such as natural keyword placement, internal and external linking, and strong header structure, it was about redressing the balance so that webmasters put value and usefulness right alongside those other features, whether they were targeting local audiences or those across multiple countries and territories.

We’ve all been there, how frustrating it is when you land on what you think is a helpful article only for it to be stuffed with keywords (which results in it making little to no sense) and have the answer you’re looking for be two-thirds of the way down the page.

What Kind of Content Does Google Consider Helpful?

So, we’ve established what the HCU is and why this major update is so important. Now let’s look at what Google means by ‘helpful’.

There are a couple of ways to view it – one is to look at the content itself and the second is to view the website in which the content is housed. Regarding the content itself, Google wants real expertise and unique, original insight that is up to date.

This starts with websites – be they a commercial e-commerce site or otherwise – zeroing in on the topic or industry that they have the most authority in and offering their expert insights, drawing on their experience and using that to inform what they say to their audience.

Example: What helpful content looks like

For example let’s say you run a travel website which reviews locations that people can visit on holiday, and you’re writing about visiting Manchester, England. A blog which satisfies the HCU would be written by an author who has been to Manchester several times and thus knows the area well, and has visited in the last few months. It would also be a piece which offers genuinely useful, unique advice that answers queries such as ‘best place to visit in Manchester’ or, ‘when is the best time to visit Manchester’. 

This is ‘people first’ content and is all about ensuring the user leaves your site feeling like their query or question has been answered and/or they have learnt something new from someone who is an expert in that field.

Regarding the website in which the content is housed, insights are deemed even more helpful by Google if they appear on a website that loads quickly, isn’t riddled with pop-ups, and is secure. Putting in through technical search engine optimisation is just as important as the words themselves.

Real Impact or a PR Exercise? What Impact Has the Helpful Content Update Had?

When it was announced, there was a great deal of chatter and noise about the update and what it could mean for websites. Many were hopeful that there would be a large redressing of the balance and that those websites that worked hard to create people-first content would be rewarded with better organic search rankings.

The reality was, to be honest, a lot smaller than what was promised by Google, and hoped by SEO professionals. Even after it had finished rolling out, only a few specific website categories were properly affected with others waiting and waiting for something that didn’t happen.

While there were examples of websites that duplicated lots of content across pages being punished and losing significant visibility the wider effect on Google Search was not there.

Many in the SEO community were disappointed and felt that this ‘update’ was more of a PR exercise by Google and an attempt to let their customers know that they were taking this issue seriously, without really doing anything majorly impactful.

However, some, like our Senior SEO Account Manager Jamie Beatty, did see the positive side of this update, however minimal the material impact may have been: ‘The real impact of the Google helpful content update has been to reawaken and realign SEO’s and other digital marketers priorities about the true power of content, and has helped to put more of a focus on why conducting good solid research to create high-quality content is so important to follow Google’s main purpose which is to consistently improve the SERP to create the best user experience possible.’

There was a good deal of self-reflection among those in the industry who felt that they had all fallen for the bait and ended up becoming a mouthpiece of Google and the HCU because they were sold a story that this upcoming update would be huge. At the time of writing, 77,900 web pages mention ‘The Helpful Content Update’, with only a handful of those sites coming from Google themselves.

This proliferation of stories and outreach for the HCU didn’t reflect previous core updates which did have a significant impact on the SEO industry such as Panda or Hummingbird. This led industry insiders to conclude that the HCU was more of a public relations exercise, designed to ward people off purposely creating duplicate, unhelpful or low-quality content, than a rollout of real substance.

Make Your Content as Helpful Possible

Whether the Helpful Content Update had a material effect or not is up for debate. Maybe it is too soon to tell, but it’s clear that this topic has put what makes ‘good’ content right in the spotlight of people across the SEO industry.

At Embryo, our feelings about the HCU are simple. With every piece of content we write, we must ensure that it is the most helpful, value-led piece of work that it can be. Plain and simple.

We think people overthink content and SEO, to be honest. While certain SEO principles need to be adhered to, at the end of the day, authors should focus on providing value.