Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
October’s SEO roundup comes in the aftershock of several huge Google updates and developments that may determine the future of AI content. Get caught up here with the latest case studies, guides, and news. First, the case studies will update you on the latest data. This month’s items are about the updates, including how Google foreshadowed some Helpful Content Update (HCU) changes, how the HCU deployed from rollout to impact, and what you can do about HCU visibility loss. You’ll also get two perspectives about the winners and losers of the core update. After that, the guides will help you adjust to some of the new changes. You’ll get two looks at how to take advantage of recent AI upgrades. Finally, you’ll get caught up on the month’s biggest news. Google confirms the helpful content update is complete, has quietly removed the tag “Written by People, and has made the controversial announcement that links are not a major search factor (I have some thoughts about it). The September 2023 Google Helpful Content Update – Did Google’s Announcement in April About Page Experience Foreshadow What We’re Seeing With the Current HCU(X)? https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/september-2023-google-helpful-content-update-hcux/ Glenn Gabe brings you this look at the Helpful Content Update and why it may be having the impact it had on the hardest-hit sites. He takes you through some recent statements by Google and provides data to help you understand how these ideas are now being used. He starts you with some image examples of sites that saw significant drops. Glenn argues that he’s found an important pattern in these hard-hit sites: They all have the dual problems of unhelpful content and bad UX. Among other trends he noticed on these sites were large ads, auto-playing videos, pop-ups, and other intrusive elements. Google has become more committed or more advanced at targeting these issues as of this update, and as Glenn explained—they warned you. Glenn refers to a recent change to Google’s guidance on helpful content. It recommends that website owners focus on user experience overall rather than trying to score higher core web vital scores. He argues that this policy is now being enforced, and the sites hit by this update were the first to feel the effects. The changes to best practices go beyond web vitals and require website owners to think more carefully about ad placement, readability, and other issues that compromise content quality. Check out the complete guide for more of Glenn’s thoughts. For now, you can jump into some theory on what to do about these changes if your website is targeted. You’ll start with one of the most comprehensive HCU breakdowns yet available. Google’s Helpful Content Update: Full Review, Analysis, and Recovery https://on-page.ai/pages/helpful-content-update/ Eric Lancheres brings you this deep look into the HCU, which he argues is one of the most impactful updates in a long time. He tackles the motivations behind the update, some theories for how the algorithm works now, his ongoing tests and experiments, and so much more. He starts with a comprehensive look at the signals Google was putting out before the update landed. You’ll find a list of links to all of the official statements and his arguments for what they’re hinting toward. Then, he gives you a history of the “AI Classifier,” an AI-driven process that he argues was a large part of this update and that Google is using to judge article-type content in particular. He covers some theories of how this process works and how it may be evaluating your content He also makes a case for how he believes the Google Algorithm itself is changing after this update. He introduces the new “helpful score,” which is now a ranking factor, and shows you how it may already be leading to serious changes in your ranking position. That’s really only the beginning of his analysis, however. The rest of the article features before-and-after comparisons, small case studies of affected sites, and his predictions for the future. His article has far more than can be covered here. Make sure you check it out to find some solid advice and a ton of graphs and data to help you make sense of what you’re seeing. Next, you’ll find another perspective on HCU, focused on the steps you can take right now for recovery. The September Helpful Content Update: Why You Were Affected and What You Can Do https://www.mariehaynes.com/the-september-helpful-content-update-why-you-were-affected-and-what-you-can-do/ Marie Haynes brings you this look at corrective actions you can take if your site was one of those hit by the latest HCU. She has a theory for why many sites were negatively affected. She argues that there are strong reasons to believe that sites most affected were those that prioritized SEO tactics over authentic first-hand experiences. Her analysis spotted the following trends among the affected recipe and lifestyle sites— She diagnosed most affected sites as having low-value or unhelpful content. As she points out, if the Helpful Content System detects low-quality content—it becomes a site-wide classification Only a few sections or pages of bad content need to exist to cause problems for your entire site. She believes that the rater guidelines offer some clues to help you recover. First, she recommends that you shift your content goals toward what is being rewarded, namely: See her guide for a more complete explanation and more tips. The next guide also has some ideas on quality. It will teach you the importance of utilizing quality data. Now that you have somewhere to start with the HCU, let’s jump into the months next big update. It starts with a look at the winners and losers of the core update with an analysis from the Sistrix team. Google Core Update August 2023 – Data and Analysis https://www.sistrix.com/blog/google-core-update-august-2023-data-and-analysis/ Steve Paine brings you this post-update look at how the changes are affecting major sites in UK search. He tracked the volatility through the peak on September 1st until the announcement it had concluded on the 7th. He includes for you several tables that cover the biggest winners and losers. You’ll find the 20 largest winners and losers by both percentage and absolute changes in position. As a preview, here are both the top 5 winners and losers by change in absolute position— Steve identified two niches in particular as worth some extra attention. Large general retail sites seemed to experience lost rankings across the board. Reference domains seemed to do much better than they have during recent updates. Their positions mostly didn’t change. Next, you’ll get some more Analysis on this update from the team at Amsive. Google August 2023 Core Update: Winners, Losers & Analysis https://www.amsive.com/insights/seo/google-august-2023-core-update-winners-losers-analysis/ Lily Ray brings you this next look at the Core Update. She focused her analysis on some of the factors that may be driving the changes, including the rise of AI content, and changes in how Google perceives user experience. She starts with a look at the most affected sites broken down by their niche/category. She found that some categories were highly over-represented. Among the most affected were news sites, review sites, health sites and travel sites. Reddit.com was recorded as one of the most rewarded sites, with a 64.68% increase in its visibility. She dove further into this result, noting that UGC (user-generated content) sites in general experienced very good results, though none were close to matching Reddit. Among the losers, she highlighted the results of some news sites, some of which saw declines in visibility over 70%. Lily also identified what appeared to be a trend with significant gains and losses among different review sites. Review sites that emphasized the user’s personal experience were rewarded, while sites that lacked real experience seemed to see declining visibility across the board. Additionally, she noted that many lyric sites rewarded in the March update seemed to lose a lot of their gains. Check out her full analysis for more information on winners and losers. For now, you’re ready to move on to the guides. To begin, you’ll learn about the importance of quality data and how to build it. What Is Quality Data and How It Connects Search, Content, and AI Success https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-is-quality-data-and-how-it-connects-search-content-and-ai-success/496287/ Lemuel Park wants you to understand the essential role of quality data in building a foundation for enhanced AI, search, and content marketing strategies. He identifies poor quality data as a root cause of numerous problems, including operational disruptions, useless insights, and bad decision-making regarding search. Quality data, he argues, will have the following attributes— He has some ideas for marketers who are looking to improve the quality of their data so that they can use it more effectively. Among other strategies, he argues that you should— See his entire piece for more advice on the importance of data quality, and how businesses can do more to ensure it. Next, you’ll learn how generative AI fits into the future of branding, and how the knowledge graph can help. GenAI and the Future of Branding: The Crucial Role of the Knowledge Graph https://moz.com/blog/gen-ai-and-the-future-of-branding Sara Moccand-Sayegh Read More Read More
The post Diggity Marketing SEO News Roundup—October 2023 first appeared on Diggity Marketing.
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