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If you're looking to understand how Google ranks content for relevance and helpfulness, especially after recent updates like the March 2024 core update, this article breaks down Google's key signals: meaning, relevance, quality, usability, and context. To improve your SEO, focus on creating original, high-quality content that deeply satisfies user intent, demonstrates expertise and authority […]

The December core update was a quick one, running from December 12-18, 2024. Following this,  Google launched a surprise spam update only days after the core update finished. It ran from December 19-26.  There are many comments on Barry Schwartz's article on the spam update with site owners reporting significant declines in traffic. Some are […]

Google recently held an event in which they invited a small group of website owners who had been impacted strongly by the helpful content system. I’ll recap some of the great blog posts and tweet threads written about this. Then, I’d like to think upon what we can learn from what Google representatives said. The […]

Although Google told us the site reputation abuse policy would go into effect on Sunday, May 5, Danny Sullivan tweeted on Monday evening that the manual actions were currently being handed out and that the algorithmic component was not yet live. At the time I write this, we have seen the first manual actions. I […]

The March 2024 Update has finally finished rolling out. We have a lot to study and learn about before we can understand what happened with this update.   What’s most important to know: Google called the March Core and spam updates “an evolution in how [they] identify the helpfulness of content.” (See below for my […]

Marie Haynes. March 27, 2024. The helpful content system has changed. As of March 2024, it is no longer its own separate system, but now, helpfulness is determined primarily on the page level by Google's core systems. I spent some time reviewing Google's previous wording to help us understand this significance of what has changed. […]

Two articles were published this week that spoke of the frustration most of us who have worked in SEO have felt over the dominance of large brands for many search results. I’d like to share why I think Google has this problem, and why I think we will soon be seeing a change where more […]

Google announced a number of significant changes to Assistant. The majority of coverage so far has been surrounding the many things that will be discontinued like sending an email with your voice for example. With no fanfare, the blog post quietly stated that “the microphone icon will now trigger Search Results” from within the Google […]

The helpful content system produces a signal that is a "negative classification". Sites that have this classification are suppressed from ranking at their full potential. But why do some sites improve during a helpful content system? It may be simply at the expense of those who were suppressed. Or, there is another explanation. Google may […]

The September 2023 Helpful Content has a catastrophic impact on many sites. It had an immediate impact for those given an unhelpful content classification. Most sites impacted have a large decline that starts some time between September 14, 2023 and September 18.  For most sites impacted, the declines continue. At the time of me writing […]