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 a quick refresh, the update launched in April of 2021 and just evaluated product reviews at that point. That’s why it was originally named the Product Reviews Update (PRU). Then with the April 2023 reviews update, it moved to evaluating any content providing recommendations, reviews, analysis, etc.

The various reviews updates have caused serious volatility across many sites providing product reviews, especially affiliate sites looking to earn money from those reviews. And with the transition in April of 2023, the update now impacts any site “with the purpose of providing a recommendation, giving an opinion, or providing analysis.” Also, reviews can be about any topic and across any vertical. So the system has greatly expanded.

I have had many companies reach out to me after dropping heavily when reviews updates roll out. In addition, and this is something I have documented many times in posts and presentations about the reviews system, some sites have experienced insane volatility over time as they surge and drop often (even outside of official reviews updates). For example, here are two examples of that in action:

Imagine being a site owner with trending like that… Good luck trying to plan for anything.

And with the November 2023 reviews update, Google announced that the reviews system is now “improved at a regular and ongoing pace”. So Google will not be posting about future updates (unless there’s a significant change that they want site owners to know about). For example, if the system expands to additional languages.

(Future) impact based on the reviews system: The significance of ‘continual improvement’.
Regarding moving to running continually, that is something that Google’s John Mueller explained could happen in a search central hangout video back in April of 2021. I made sure to share about that at the time. Here is the video of John explaining this:

By the way, this is similar to when Panda got baked into Google’s core ranking system in 2016, never to be heard of again. And I feel like the reviews system could be the same way. For example, if your site is impacted by the reviews system moving forward, and it’s not during a specific reviews update, how will you absolutely know it was the reviews system impacting your site? Well, you won’t, just like when Panda moved to Google’s core ranking algorithm.

Here’s a slide from one of my SMX presentations where I explained the reviews update would probably be baked into Google’s core ranking algorithm at some point:

The November 2023 Reviews Update: Reviewing the review sites (visibility-wise).
With the launch of the November 2023 reviews update, I wanted to check how sites were performing that had been heavily impacted one of the previous reviews updates. So, I ended up checking the visibility trending for about seven hundred sites that had been previously impacted by product reviews updates or reviews updates. I checked their search visibility from before the first reviews update in April of 2021 and then checked their visibility as of November 25, 2023.

I quickly started seeing a trend, and it wasn’t pretty.

Many of the sites had been obliterated and haven’t recovered… at all. Once ranking for many competitive queries, the sites now either barely rank, or they have basically shut down. It’s incredible to see the impact of what an algorithm update like this can do over time. And to be clear, I’m not saying these were all great sites… they weren’t. But looking back in time enabled me to see how Google could craft a system to tackle a specific problem (thin and low-quality reviews) and how that system could rock many sites focused on reviews.

Here’s a quick snapshot of what I saw when running the visibility numbers across seven hundred sites:

Note, Google created the reviews system to surface the highest-quality reviews content, so it was built for the right reasons, but the impact has been jaw-dropping. And I’ll explain soon why this should be alarming for sites impacted by Google’s helpful content update (especially the September HCU).

Here are some examples so you can see the massive impact many of these sites have experienced. Notice that several of the sites have been impacted by multiple types of updates as well. So yes, the reviews update has impacted the sites heavily, but so have broad core updates, spam updates, and helpful content updates.

And I can keep going… it was wild to see the massive drops over time with no little or no recovery. Many of the sites are unfortunately in a very serious state right now. And that got me thinking about the September helpful content update (HCUX), which I’ll cover next.

What this means for sites impacted by Google’s helpful content update, especially the September 2023 HCU(X):
Back to the September helpful content update, or HCU(X), which was a huge update. Many sites got hammered by the update, dropping by 70%+ overnight. Many of the drops were extreme, which reminded me of some of the drops I have seen with sites impacted by reviews updates over time. And after reviewing many sites that were impacted in September of 2023, I believe many of them have a lot of work to do in order to improve, and possibly recover.

For example, if a site has been heavily impacted by the HCU(X), then it’s algorithmically being classified as “unhelpful” by Google. Site owners will need to improve significantly over time in order for that classifier to be dropped. Google has explained that it can take months of doing the right things in order for the classifier to be dropped and a site recover. In other words, the percentage of “unhelpful content” must decrease heavily over time in order for the classifier to be dropped (and that could lead to recovery).

So yes, sites can recover from an HCU hit, but so could review sites… And many didn’t. At all.

The HCU is continually running now, so sites technically don’t need to wait for another official helpful content update to recover. But the reality is that the recoveries I have seen have occurred during official helpful content updates (when the classifier has been improved or other major changes implemented). I wonder if that will change over time with more sites seeing recovery outside of those specific updates… Time will tell.

Regardless, the most important point is that sites heavily impacted by the HCU(X) in September should work hard to clearly get out of the gray area of Google’s algorithms… and have the classifier dropped. If not, those sites will continue along at the (low) visibility levels they are at now. And for many, that’s not a viable situation business-wise. Just check the trending I shared earlier across those review sites that never recovered.

A reminder about the gray area of Google’s algorithms: A maddening place for site owners to live.
For site owners impacted by the HCU, it’s important to CLEARLY get out of the gray area. If not, you may never recover. And worse, you may never know how close you are to recovering. I have covered this concept many times over the years, especially when medieval Panda roamed the web. I helped many companies that were impacted by Panda and the ones that saw the quickest recovery, and with the largest surges, usually tackled big problems in big ways. They did not cherry pick changes or just moderately improve. They chose to significantly improve over time.

You can read my post about the September HCU(X) for more information about the problems I saw across sites from a content and UX standpoint. If you were heavily impacted by the September helpful content update, then I highly recommend addressing those issues fully. Implementing minor changes will probably not help your situation (which is similar to review sites that were heavily impacted by the reviews update and didn’t address their problems fully). As documented earlier, that didn’t end well for many of those sites.

It’s also important to remember that machine learning is being used with major algorithm updates like broad core updates, the reviews update, and the helpful content update. That means many signals are sent to a machine learning system, which dictates weighting of those signals, and ultimately rankings. It’s not a simple ‘if-then’ statement… So make sure your site has the ability to creep out of the gray area so the HCU classifier can be dropped.

If you can significantly improve, your site can recover. But if you don’t do enough to pass Google’s algorithmic evaluation, you could remain down heavily (with no understanding of how close you are to recovery). Again, that’s a maddening place to live for site owners.

Good luck.

GG

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 situations recently based on heavily analyzing the September helpful content update (HCU). I don’t think anyone has covered the topic of UGC’s impact with the helpful content update yet, so I wanted to quickly cover it in this post.

Since the launch of the first HCU in August of 2022, I saw many examples of low-quality AI content get hit hard. I mentioned that several times when sharing about drops with the August 2022 HCU, the December 2022 HCU, and now with the more aggressive September HCU(X). But that was more about the site owner using AI heavily to publish lower-quality (and unhelpful) content on their own site. So the sites ended up with a lot of lower-quality AI content over time and got hit by the HCU.

What I’m referring to today is about other people adding lower-quality AI content to your site via UGC. In other words, what if people submitting user-generated content are using AI to quickly craft that content? And what if that content is lower quality, not edited to add value, not refined to be truly insightful, etc.? Yep, that can be problematic, and site owners that allow UGC are starting to see this issue creep up. And for some sites that have contacted me after the September HCU, they got hit very hard and dropped heavily in search visibility.

A reminder about Google’s stance on AI content: It’s about quality.
It’s important to remember that Google isn’t against all AI content. It’s against low-quality AI content. So if someone is using AI to help them create content, and they edit and refine that content to make sure it’s accurate, valuable, etc., then that could be totally fine. But if someone is simply exporting AI-generated content, and publishing that at scale, then they are teeing their site up to get obliterated by either the helpful content update or even a broad core update.

Here is a paragraph from Google’s post about AI content where Danny Sullivan explains that AI content with the primary purpose of manipulating ranking in search results is what they have a problem with:

The insidious creep of low-quality user-generated AI content:
In my opinion, and based on what I have seen while analyzing many sites impacted by the HCU, low-quality AI content at scale can be incredibly dangerous. And if UGC is a core part of your site’s content, then you have to keep a close eye on quality. That’s been the case with UGC for a very long time, but now it’s much easier for users to leverage AI creation tools to craft responses on forums, Q&A sites, and more.

And just because someone else posted the content on your site, you are still responsible. Google has explained that many times over the years. Below I’ve included just one of several tweets that I have shared over the years about Google explaining that UGC will be counted when evaluating quality. If it’s on your site, and it’s indexed, it’s counted when evaluating quality.

This should sound familiar… since John has been saying this *forever*. If the content is on your site, it can be taken into account when Google evaluates quality. Doesn't matter if it's UGC (and you didn't write it). Site owners should moderate heavily. https://t.co/g9KSkHhVPF

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 22, 2022

Moderate UGC Heavily:
Since medieval Panda days (circa 2011), I have always explained that site owners need to moderate user-generated content heavily. If not, lower-quality content can creep in and build over time. And when that happens, you are setting your site up to get hit hard by a major algorithm update. So my advice is the same now, but with a slight AI twist. I would now also be on the lookout for lower-quality AI content and not just your typical UGC spam. The top AI content detection tools continue to improve and can help flag content with a high probability that it was created via AI.

Below, I’ll cover some tips for site owners that might be dealing with lower-quality AI user-generated content. Again, I’ve had several sites reach out where that issue has been creeping up over the past year or so…

Detection, Volume, and Pace: The AI UGC Triple
Beyond just identifying AI-generated content, you can check the volume of responses from users and the pace at which those responses are being submitted. One site owner reached out to me recently showing a user that submitted many responses in a short period of time. When running those responses through an AI content detection tool, they all came back with a 100% probability the content was created via AI. For example, you can see two of those submissions below.

So the combination of volume, pace, and fairly obvious AI content yielded a good example of a user leveraging AI to pump out a ton of UGC on the site in question.

Note, it’s a large-scale site, so this one user would probably have little impact. But over time, if other users did the same, it could absolutely cause problems from a quality perspective. The site owner was smart to reach out to me about this. They handled that user and might develop a process for identifying patterns that could help surface people trying to game the system with lower-quality AI user-generated content.

And remember, the September HCU seemed to incorporate UX into the equation (which I have heavily seen while analyzing many sites impacted). So user experience barriers like aggressive ads, popups, interstitials, and more can contribute to “unhelpful content”. So if you combine low-quality AI user-generated content with a terrible UX, you could have a serious problem on your hands with the HCU roaming the web. Beware.

Wrapping up: A warning for site owners that accept UGC.
Again, I wanted to cover this topic for any site that publishes user-generated content. Even if you have a larger-scale site with a ton of content, I would be very careful with letting any type of low-quality content on the site. And now with the ease of AI content generation tools, you should be careful about letting low-quality AI user-generated content on the site. Again, I’ve had several companies reach out after getting hit hard, and that was clearly part of the problem.

I’ll end this post with some tips and recommendations for site owners:

• Moderate heavily, and with an AI twist: If you accept user-generated content on your site, you should be already moderating heavily from a quality perspective. But now you should also be on the lookout for lower-quality AI content that’s being submitted.
• Pace of submission: One red flag could be the pace of submission by certain users. For example, I explained earlier that a company that reached out to me after notifcing submissions that seemed a bit off… When digging into that user, there were a bunch of submissions in a very short period of time. And after running those submissions through AI content detection tools, there was a 100% probability that those submissions were created via AI.
• Testing Lab: I recommend creating a testing lab that leverages several AI content detection tools. The tools are not perfect, but they are good at detecting lower-quality AI generated content. Have a process in place for checking content that’s been flagged. And I’ll cover APIs next, which can help check content in bulk.
• APIs are your friend: Some AI content detection tools have APIs that enable you to check content in bulk. If you have a large-scale site, with a lot of user-generated content, then leveraging an API could be a smart way to go. For example, GPTZero, Originality.ai, and others have APIs that you can leverage for checking content at scale.
• AI content policy for user-generated content: Have a policy in place about AI content that users can access and easily understand. Make sure users understand what is allowed, and what is not allowed, including what you will do if low-quality AI content is detected.
• Indexing-wise, be quick, be decisive: And finally, deal with the AI submissions quickly and make sure they don’t get indexed (or don’t stay indexed). As I have covered many times before in posts and presentations about major algorithm updates, all indexed pages are taken into account when Google evaluates quality. So focus on what I call “quality indexing” and make sure lower-quality AI user-generated content does not get indexed.

Summary: Watch for UGC with an AI twist.
For sites that accept user-generated content, it has always been important to moderate that content heavily from quality perspective. And now with AI content generation tools, UGC is now trickier to deal with, and moderation has gotten a bit harder. I recommend reviewing the tips and recommendations I provided in this post to create a process for flagging potential problems, and then handling those issues quickly. That’s the best way to maintain strong “quality indexing” levels, which is important for avoiding problems based on major algorithm updates like the helpful content update and broad core updates.

GG

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 update. Needless to say, it’s been a crazy and wild time for SEOs and site owners. Like I’ve said many times before, Welcome To Google Land.

As the updates have been rolling out, I have spoken with countless site owners that have been impacted. And during those conversations, I find myself explaining the same points and answering the same questions over and over. So, I finally decided to write a post covering some of the most important points that site owners need to understand about broad core updates. This is based on my experience helping many companies work to recover from core updates, which are major algorithm updates that roll out several times per year. My hope is the following information can help site owners that might not be familiar with broad core updates, maybe they don’t understand how they work, how sites can recover, and more.

This is a living document, and I’m sure I’ll add more key points as broad core updates evolve over time. Let’s begin (in no particular order).

Site-level quality algorithms:
I’ll start with a super-important topic for site owners to understand. Google has site-level quality algorithms that can have a big impact on how sites are impacted during broad core updates. This is why you can see massive surges or spikes when broad core updates roll out. Google is evaluating sites overall with broad core updates and not just on a url-by-url basis. So, don’t miss the forest for the trees… Focus on the big picture when improving your site. That’s how Google is looking at it…

The difference between relevancy adjustments, intent shifts, and quality problems:
If a site has been impacted negatively by a broad core update, then it’s important to understand the reason. I have covered this topic many times in my blog posts and presentations about broad core updates and I find myself explaining this over and over again. Actually, I have an entire post covering the difference between relevancy adjustments, intent shifts, and quality problems that site owners should definitely read. To quickly summarize the post, a drop from a broad core update is NOT always due to quality problems. It could be relevancy adjustments or intent shifts as well. If that’s the case, then quality isn’t the problem on your end and it’s not something you can really fix… It’s just that your content isn’t as relevant anymore for the query at hand or that another type of site is ranking for the query.

For relevancy adjustments, a good example is an article about a celebrity from two or three years ago that was ranking well (and it drops with a broad core update based on not being relevant anymore). For intent shifts, maybe a review site drops since Google is now ranking ecommerce sites instead. That’s on Google’s end, not yours. Don’t jump the gun and start nuking content or revamping your entire site until you know the cause of the drop.

To start down that path, I highly recommend running a delta report to understand the queries and landing pages that dropped the most based on a broad core update. Dig in and determine if it was a relevancy adjustment, intent shift, or if it’s quality problems. Then take action (or not).

“Content is king”, but “quality” is more than just content.
We have heard the expression, “Content is king” over and over again for SEO. Content quality is obviously critically important, but it’s more than just content when it comes to broad core updates. This is something I have been saying since medieval Panda days when I noticed UX was part of the equation. For example, UX barriers, aggressive, disruptive, or deceptive advertising, deceptive affiliate setup, annoying popups and interstitials, and more.

And if you don’t believe me, then listen to Google’s John Mueller. In a webmaster hangout video from 2021, John explained that Google is evaluating a site overall with broad core updates. It’s more than just content. It covers UX issues, the advertising situation, how things are presented, sources, and more. This is just another reason that I highly recommend using the “kitchen sink” approach to remediation. If you solely focus on the content, and don’t take the entire user experience into account, then you could still end up in the gray area of Google’s algorithms (and see negative impact during broad core updates).

Impacted by a broad core update? Via @johnmu: With core updates, Google doesn't focus on individual issues, but rather the relevance of the site overall (including content quality, UX issues, ads on the page, how things are presented, sources, & more): https://t.co/WFbHH6mD7s pic.twitter.com/lT3RSexdn6

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) October 10, 2021

Thin doesn’t mean short. It’s about value to the user.
If quality is the problem, and you’re digging into content quality, then understand that thin doesn’t mean short. There are plenty of examples of pages with shorter content that can meet or exceed user expectations. It’s more about value to the user. Don’t just nuke a bunch of content because it’s short. Objectively evaluate if the content can meet or exceed user expectations.

This was part of my presentation for the Wix webinar on Tuesday. If the content can meet or exceed user expectations, it's totally fine (even if short!). See slide below :) -> Google: Word Count Is Not A Sign Of Thin Or Unhelpful Content https://t.co/Wtg7gyhAwy @WilliamHarvey pic.twitter.com/EhSNynIqa5

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 15, 2022

Old does not mean low-quality:
Repeat after me. Older content does not mean low-quality content. There are many sites out there nuking older content thinking it’s thin. That’s not the case, and Google has even come out recently to reiterate that point. If older content is high quality, then it can be helping your site on multiple levels. It could have earned links and mentions over time, it could be helping with an overall quality evaluation, and more. This is an especially important topic for news publishers that might have very old content that isn’t receiving much traffic anymore. Don’t nuke that content if it’s high quality. Only remove it if it’s lower-quality or thin (if it can’t meet or exceed user expectations).

Broad core updates can impact other Google surfaces (beyond Web Search):
I find that some site owners focus just on web search when evaluating a drop from broad core updates, but there are other Google surfaces that can be driving a lot of traffic. For example, image search, video search, the News tab in Search, Discover, Google News proper, etc. Google is on record that these other surfaces can be impacted by broad core updates, and that’s exactly what I have seen over the years while helping companies that have been heavily impacted. If other surfaces are important for your business, then make sure to check trending for those surfaces when broad core updates roll out. Again, this is why you don’t want to be on the wrong side of a broad core update.

Recovery From Broad Core Updates:
For sites that are heavily impacted by a broad core update, you can typically only see recovery with another broad core update. Google has explained this a number of times, and it’s what I have seen many times while helping companies in the field. In addition, Google is on record explaining that its algorithms want to see significant improvement over the long-term in order for a site to recover. So, a site might need to wait for the next core update, or even another (or another). I’ve seen severe situations where it took a site over a year for a site to recover after implementing significant improvements across content, UX, the ad situation, affiliate setup, technical problems causing quality problems, and more.

And I said “typically” earlier because there are times that sites have recovered from a broad core update hit outside of a broad core update. I’ll cover how that can happen next.

Google could decouple algorithms from broad core updates and run them separately.
At the webmaster conference in Mountain View in 2019, I asked Google’s Paul Haahr if Google could roll out broad core updates more frequently (since many site owners were working hard to recover and they only roll out a few times per year). He explained that Google does so much evaluation in between core updates that it can be a bottleneck to rolling them out more frequently. But, Paul did explain that they could always decouple algorithms from broad core updates and run them separately. And we have seen that several times over the years.

For example, the September 2022 broad core update hammered several prominent news publishers (like CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Mail, etc.) When the core update completed, the news publishers were still down. But, four weeks later an unconfirmed update rolled out and those news publishers came roaring back. It was a great example of Google decoupling an algorithm (or several) from broad core updates and running them separately. 

Remediation and the “Kitchen Sink” Approach:
Now that I covered how “quality” is more than just content, I can cover more about remediation if quality is the problem. It’s incredibly important to understand that Google wants to see significant improvement over the long-term. And Google is evaluating a site overall with broad core updates. That means you should NOT cherry pick changes… Instead, you should surface all potential quality problems and address as many as you can.

And since you can’t really recover until another broad core update (or more), then being too selective with the changes you are implementing could lead to never exiting the gray area (and never recovering). But you won’t know how close you are to recovering… I’ve always said that’s a maddening place to live for site owners. This is why it’s important to objectively analyze your site through the lens of broad core updates, surface as many issues as you can across content, UX, ads, affiliate setup, technical SEO problems causing quality issues, and more. Then fix as many as you can. I’ve often said there’s never one smoking gun with broad core update drops… there’s typically a battery of them. I’ve seen that across many large-scale and complex sites I have helped over the years.

“Quality indexing”: An incredibly important topic for site owners.
I have covered this topic many times in my blog posts and presentations about broad core updates. Google is on record explaining that every page indexed is taken into account when evaluating quality. This is why it’s super-important to understand quality across the entire site and focus on what I call “quality indexing”. That’s making sure only your highest-quality content is indexable, while ensuring low-quality or thin content is not indexed.

Don’t just look at content recently posted, look at all of your content. It’s not uncommon for me to find large pockets of low-quality or thin content throughout a large-scale and complex site. The ratio matters. Don’t look past this point.

Machine learning systems at play (and what that means):
Google is using machine learning with major algorithm updates like broad core updates, helpful content updates, and reviews updates. Understanding how they work is very important to understand. First, you are never going to reverse engineer a broad core update…. ever. With machine learning systems, Google is potentially sending thousands of signals to the machine learning system, which dictates weighting of those signals, and ultimately rankings. This is why improving a site overall is the way to go.

Bing’s Fabrice Canel explained this in 2020 with how Bing’s core ranking algorithm works. He explained even the engineers don’t understand the specific weighting of signals, since the machine learning system calculates the weighting. So, work to improve overall, surface all potential quality problems, and try to fix as many as you can. Use the “kitchen sink” approach to remediation. It’s a smart way to go.

How much does a certain factor matter for SEO? Via Bing's @facan We simply don't know. Bing is heavily using machine learning. We don't set the weighting. It's about sending thousands of features to the ML system & the system figures it out: (at 35:02) https://t.co/EiTktEFqx7 pic.twitter.com/HTzu9wkA5m

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) November 9, 2020

It’s nearly impossible to test for broad core updates.
When speaking with site owners that have been heavily impacted by broad core updates, I often hear something like, “We’ve run many tests, but nothing has worked…” When I ask more about those tests, they are often short-term tests of very specific things. The site owners didn’t implement enough changes, address enough problems, or keep the right changes in place long enough in my opinion. Then they rolled back the changes they did implement just after a few weeks (even if some were the right changes to implement!)  

This is NOT how it works.

Again, Google is evaluating a site overall and over the long-term. You cannot perform short-term testing for broad core updates. My recommendation is to always implement the right changes for users and keep those changes in place over the long-term. That’s how you can recover from a broad core update hit. If not, you are essentially playing an SEO game of whack-a-mole with little chance of succeeding.  

Rich snippets can be impacted:
This is a quick, but important point. Rich snippets can be lost during broad core updates based on Google’s reevaluation of quality. For example, it’s not uncommon for sites to lose review snippets if heavily impacted by a broad core update. It’s basically Google saying your site isn’t high quality enough to receive that treatment in the SERPs. The good news is that you can get them back if you do enough to increase quality over the long-term.

Recent changes aren’t reflected in broad core updates.
When speaking with some companies that reach out after being impacted by a broad core update, there are times they think something they implemented right before the update had a big impact on a drop. That’s probably not the case. Google explained in the past that with larger algorithm updates like broad core updates, Google is evaluating the site over an extended period of time. Recent changes wouldn’t be reflected in those updates. So, if you implemented a change a week or two before the update, it’s highly unlikely that would be causing a problem from a broad core update standpoint.

Via @johnmu: Major impact from an algo update wouldn't be from *recent* changes. For larger sites, it can take Google's algorithms a longer time to adjust to site changes. It could take several months to recrawl, reindex, & reprocess the site changes: https://t.co/p0VbFtfOO7 pic.twitter.com/Nrpiety72k

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 8, 2018

You’re probably too close to your own site. Run a user study.
I wanted to end with an incredibly important point that finds its way into almost all of my presentations and blog posts about broad core updates. I highly recommend running a user study through the lens of broad core updates. I wrote an entire post covering the power of user studies, and Google even linked to that post from their own post about core updates. It’s super-powerful to be able to gain feedback from objective users trying to accomplish a task on your site.

And I’m not referring to your spouse, children, or friends running through your site. I’m referring to selecting objective people from a user panel that fit your core demographics. Then having them try to accomplish tasks on your site and provide feedback. The questions you ask could be based on the original Panda questions Google provided, questions from Google’s post about broad core updates, questions based on the Quality Rater Guidelines, the helpful content documentation, and more.

And although running a user study sounds like an obvious step to take, I find most sites do not run user studies for one reason or another. I don’t understand why this happens… but it seems everyone is excited about running a study, but few actually execute the study. Again, you can read my post about running a user study through the lens of broad core updates to learn more about how that works, what you can learn, and more. I highly recommend setting up a study (or several).

Summary: Playing the long game with broad core updates.
I hope this post helped you learn more about how Google’s broad core updates work. Based on my experience, it’s important to play the long-game with core updates since Google is evaluating a site over the long-term quality-wise. If you have been negatively impacted by a broad core update due to quality problems, then understand that you need to significantly improve the site over time. And if impacted heavily, you can’t really recover until another broad core update rolls out (if you have done enough to recover). So, work to surface any problem that can be causing quality issues, work to fix as many as you can, and continue to improve the site over time. That’s your best path forward for recovering from a broad core update hit.

Again, I’ll update this post with more information over time. Until the next broad core update, good luck.

GG

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 ads without impacting performance, the user experience, etc.

———-

On September 14, 2023 Google rolled out the September helpful content update. This was the third helpful content update, and it has been the biggest of the three HCUs so far. I have over 500 domains documented so far that have been hammered by the update, and my list continues to grow each day.

Here are some examples of the extreme drops based on the September HCU. These are medieval Panda-like drops:

I might write a post covering more about the update once the dust settles, but I wanted to cover a specific theory I had based on analyzing many sites impacted by the update. First, after going through those sites, most just don’t have great content… I’m seeing AI-generated content, programmatic content used to churn out many unhelpful pages, sites that cover every imaginable variation of a topic without providing truly insightful or valuable information, and more. Also, I have analyzed sites that have dropped heavily across a number of categories, including lyrics, calculations, travel, translations, downloads, gaming, and many more.

Clearly the system is targeting unhelpful content, but that’s not the only thing I’m seeing. Some other sites I analyzed have definitely caught my attention. I’m not saying they have the best content in the world, but they don’t seem to have the worst content either… For example, there are sites that got crushed in the recipes, how-to, and reviews verticals that don’t fall into the same category of unhelpful content as what I explained earlier.

And a common thread on many sites impacted, including ones with content that may not be horrible, is a terrible user experience. In other words, the ad situation is severe on many of the sites, users are being bombarded with ads all over the page, auto-playing video follows you as you scroll down the page, and then you might be hit with popups as well.

This is exactly the type of aggressive, disruptive, and even sometimes deceptive, advertising situation I have spoken about for years. And when I say years, I mean from medieval Panda days back in 2011. I saw that on many sites I was helping recover from Panda. And now here we are, with what looks like Panda on steroids. I have always said, “hell hath no fury like a user scorned” and I feel like that might be the motto for the latest HCU.

First, here’s a slide from one of my presentations about broad core updates where I cover aggressive ads:

And then just one of many tweets I’ve shared about aggressive ads and core updates (this one links to a video from John Mueller explaining more about taking a step back and reviewing the site overall):

Still think aggressive ads can't hurt you? Via @johnmu: Impacted algorithmically? Take a step back & improve your site overall. E.g. Are there a ton of ads on your pages making it hard to find the content? That can be reflected in our algos over time: https://t.co/R4HSYx4pnY pic.twitter.com/c7Sv1NO8T4

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) June 14, 2019

And I even covered this on a podcast with Dre last Friday when covering what I’ve seen so far (at 55:10 in the video):

The HCU evolves to the HCU(X)?
With the original HCU in August of 2022, the sites that got hit were the most egregious from a content quality standpoint. But Google’s Danny Sullivan explained at the time that Google was serious about the helpful content system and that they would continue to improve it, and the system would evolve over time.

And evolve it did… the September 2023 helpful content update has been the most powerful of the HCUs so far (by a mile). Again, I have hundreds of domains documented that have been crushed by the update, I’ve also had many site owners reach out to me for help, and I’ve heard from many across verticals about the extreme volatility that the HCU is causing across sites. It’s a beast.

So what changed?

First, Google explained the HCU has an improved classifier, and that is clearly obvious. The sheer number of sites getting impacted is infinitely larger than previous HCUs. Second, and this is the heart of my post today, Google updated its documentation in April of 2023 about page experience, and specifically included that information in its documentation about creating helpful content.

Yes, this might have been the warning about what the September HCU was going to target. With that update to the documentation, Google took the emphasis away from core web vitals and wanted site owners to focus on the user experience overall. You can clearly see in the questions that Google covers a wider range of REAL user experience issues, versus a core web vital score that might be a few milliseconds off.

For example, Google covers an excessive amount of ads that distract or interfere with the main content, intrusive interstitials, how easily can visitors navigate to, or locate, the main content of the page, can users easily distinguish the main content from other content on your page, and more.

Again, I am NOT saying UX alone is going to get a site hammered. Google is using machine learning with the HCU, which means it’s sending many signals to the machine learning system, which dictates weighting of those signals, which ultimately dictates rankings. But the addition of this information in the helpful content documentation, and seeing those horrible UX situations across many sites impacted, has me thinking the two are connected.

Google also provided a specific FAQ in that blog post from April about the helpful content system. As you can see below, content is the focus, but UX does play a role:

So, I believe the focus of the HCU is removing unhelpful content from the SERPs, but the user experience plays a part. And the combination of lower-quality content with a terrible UX is the kiss of death with the HCU. I explained in my SMX Advanced presentation a few months ago that the helpful content system was Google’s secret weapon for fighting various types of low-quality content, but it doesn’t seem like content is the only thing they are looking at algorithmically. In my opinion, UX crept its way in when they added that documentation change in April. I just don’t think it hit home with many site owners until this update rolled out.

Improving The User Experience – And I’m not referring to core web vitals…
For site owners heavily impacted by the September 2023 helpful content update, the focus should clearly be on providing high-quality and insightful content that can help users. But, I would make sure you don’t drive those users insane while they are trying to consume your content. And if you’re in a situation where you think your content is ok, but you still got hammered, then definitely take a hard look at your UX, ad situation, popups, and more. I would not bombard users with ads, I would not trigger popups like crazy, I wouldn’t follow users down the page with auto-playing video, and I would make sure your main content can be easily and quickly identified by users.

Too close to your own site? Run a user study!
If you feel you are too close to your own site, then run a user study. I wrote a post about running user studies through the lens of broad core updates a few years ago and Google ended up linking to that post from their own article about broad core updates. You can learn so much when objective third-party users go through your site and evaluate their experience through the lens of specific algorithm updates. You can read my post for more details about running a study.

Update: Google’s new blog post on web.dev about ads and the user experience.
On Friday (9/29/23), Google’s Markus Bordihn published a blog post on web.dev covering how to effectively load ads without impacting performance, the user experience, etc. I found that timing to be very interesting considering the HCU just rolled out and UX seemed to be part of the equation (as covered throughout my post here).

I highly recommend reading the article from Markus as he covers how to provide ads without hammering the user experience. There are some great quotes in the post that I think many impacted by the September HCU should review in detail.

For example, take this quote about the need to balance generating revenue with a solid user experience (and not frustrating users):
“Consider a website that extensively places ads within its content, aiming to generate high revenue. However, the overwhelming number of ads frustrates users, leading to a poor user experience and high bounce rates. Despite the potential for substantial revenue from ads, abandonment severely hampers the website’s success.”

Or this quote about ads running above the fold (which reminds me of their ‘Page layout’ algorithm which launched years ago — AKA “Above the fold” algo):
“While above the fold ad placements are valuable, it’s important to not overload this prime space with too many ads. Excessive ads clutter the page, disrupt content readability, and detract from the user experience. Strive for a balance between monetization and maintaining a clean, user-friendly layout.”

And then this quote about ads below the fold and how they shouldn’t compromise content quality or readability:
“The placements of ads below the fold should not compromise content quality or readability. Maintaining a balance between ads and content to avoid overwhelming users and to ensure positive user experience.”

Again, that’s very interesting timing for Google publishing that post on web.dev. If you have been impacted by the September 2023 helpful content update, I highly recommend reviewing it (and then sharing it with all members of your team).

Summary: Dealing with a big September 2023 HCU hit.
Again, I might cover more about this update in a future post, but I wanted to provide this information about UX after going through many sites impacted by the September HCU, or should I say HCU(X)? Also, just a reminder that with the helpful content update, you typically cannot recover quickly. Google will need to see significant changes over the long-term in order for the HCU classifier to be dropped (which can be months). So if you have seen heavy impact, then you will need to work hard on improving both your content and the user experience. Good luck.

GG