algorithm-updates

In May of 2023 Google wrote a blog post where it explained it was planning to update its systems to surface “hidden gems”, or content written from a “personal or expert point of view”. We eagerly awaited that update when the ‘fall of insane updates’ arrived including three core updates, a massive helpful content update, … Read more

Google began enforcing its site reputation abuse spam policy on May 7, 2024 after announcing the policy two months earlier (when the March 2024 core update rolled out). At that time, we didn’t know if enforcement would be handled via manual actions, an algorithm update, or a combination of both. It ended up being just … Read more

This is my second post in a series about the March 2024 broad core update. Again, it was a huge update with many moving parts, so I wanted to cover several interesting things that went on versus writing just one post. For this post, I’m going to cover a very interesting case study that underscores … Read more

I cover the old HCU(X) classifier, site-level quality algorithms, the counterbalancing of systems, and how the transition has been as smooth as a bed of razor blades… This is the first post in a series about the March 2024 broad core update. The update was one of the largest and most complex core updates Google … Read more

Update March 20, 2024: Helpful content system baked into core ranking systems.The March 2024 core update rolled out alongside a spam update on March 5, 2024, and Google announced the helpful content system is now part of Google’s core ranking systems. That means there will not be additional helpful content updates (and the way the … Read more

As I’ve been helping companies that were heavily impacted by the “2023 Fall of Insane Algorithm Updates”, I have once again heard from several site owners that had their highest levels of traffic right before getting hammered. I’ll cover more about that soon, but it’s something I have seen for a long time. And now … Read more

Google rolled out the November 2023 reviews update on November 8, 2023 and announced it is moving to more of a continuous rollout (so the November update will probably be the last reviews update announced). That’s unless significant changes to the system are implemented (like expanding to additional languages or other major changes implemented). As … Read more

Including tips and recommendations for helping site owners navigate the AI UGC triple (detection, volume, and pace of lower-quality AI user-generated content.) The term “low-quality AI user-generated content” is a mouthful, but it’s an important topic for site owners that allow UGC to be published on their sites. And I have come across several tough … Read more

The past two months in Google Land has been one of the most volatile times I can remember in the search industry. Google released the August broad core update, then a powerful helpful content update in September, then the October broad core update, and also sandwiched in a spam update which overlapped the October core … Read more

Based on what I’m seeing with sites heavily impacted by the HCU, and what Google explained in its April documentation update, the combination of unhelpful content and poor UX can be an extremely problematic combination for site owners. Update: 10/2/23:Included a section about Google’s latest blog post on web.dev which covers how to effectively run … Read more