Is your website ready for Google’s new update? Qualitative content gets better rankings
In August 2022, Google started to roll out their new update, "helpful content", which primarily aims to remove pages with content that don’t satisfy users or provide them with sufficient information – i.e. pages created solely to rank high. Initially, the update only affects searches in English, but Google plans to expand to other languages in the future.
What does Google’s “helpful content” update mean?
At some point, we’ve all landed on a website that did not meet our expectations regarding relevant, helpful content. Google has noted this and is now updating Google Search to reward informative and quality content rather than content created primarily to rank higher in search engines. Along with a series of other updates over the years, this update is part of Google’s broader effort to reduce low-quality content and make it easier for users to find content that feels authentic and credible. Google Search always strives to provide people with the most useful information possible; simply put, content written by people, for people.
A signal to the entire site
The update primarily targets websites that have a relatively large amount of unsatisfactory content, where the content has been mainly written for search engines. Google has stated that this update introduces a new site-wide signal alongside various other signals to rank web pages, and their system also automatically identifies content of low value and content that isn’t particularly useful to searchers. You can start by asking yourself if your site has inappropriate content. If the answer is yes, it should be removed to help your other content rank better.
Recommendations for creating more useful content:
- Is the content credible and reliable?
- Would your target group find this content interesting and/or useful?
- Is the landing page based on useful, relevant content?
- Is the content correctly written?
- Does the content provide a complete or comprehensive description of the subject?
It’s good to ask these questions when creating content for your site, so the purpose of each page becomes clear. It also gives you an idea of whether there is internal competition between different pages, and what intention you have with the content on each page.
NEED HELP REFRESHING YOUR WEBSITE CONTENT? GET IN TOUCH!
Author: Michelle Åberg
Source: Google Search
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