Google will reduce the visibility of content created exclusively for ranking purposes
The next significant change to Google’s algorithm for ranking results targets the industry it has created. According to the company’s explanation, the aim is to prevent users from feeling frustrated by arriving at a website designed to attract clicks rather than to offer content that justifies the position it occupies in searches. It also points specifically to pieces that are automatically crafted, as well as clickbait. The move could significantly affect media outlets with a high percentage of traffic derived from volume SEO strategies that help increase advertising revenue or revenue from intermediary buys.
The update will begin to be rolled out during the last week of August under the name helpful content update and its impact will extend to entire websites, not just specific pages. Preliminary tests indicate that the changes will especially improve search results in areas where the technology giant has detected a higher prevalence of low-quality content with a high ranking intent: online education, technology, entertainment and shopping.
Media that publish a large volume of content for purposes other than reader satisfaction risk losing search visibility, especially if they abuse automatically generated content.
In the latter case, Google had already taken previous steps over the past year to give greater visibility to in-depth, first-hand reviews of products that might be valuable to the user’s decision to purchase them. This is a key issue insofar as it competes with Amazon for these kinds of searches with the eventual purpose of purchase, with what that means in terms of commissions or advertising budgets at stake.
In fact, Google warns that in the coming weeks it will release another update focused on surfacing the most documented and comprehensive product reviews, which introduces uncertainty about the SEO strategies for converting affiliate revenue of some media outlets that do not test what they recommend. That business has been gaining traction at outlets such as The New York Times and is the basis of The Wall Street Journal’s new project, though its impact is being diluted to BuzzFeed.
Helpful content update will operate primarily for English searches and is expected to expand to other languages in the future. According to Google, the key to benefiting from this update can be summarised in a set of circumstances: having a real or potential audience that values the content; clearly demonstrating in-depth knowledge of the topic or product being published; maintaining a clear thematic line on the web; and offering quality pieces so that users feel satisfied with the experience of having consumed them, among others.
