Google plans to prioritize “content made specifically by and for people” in Search in English globally, covering shopping, tech-related content, and more
particularly for education, entertainment, shopping and tech content. See what else is new on Search. https://blog.google/... Danny Sullivan / @dannysullivan : Excited our “helpful content update” launches soon. Been watching team work hard on it, part of a broad continuing effort to bring more authentic info into Google Search. I'm on vacation this week but will try in few hours to answer questions I see, though our posts cover a lot. https://twitter.com/... Mark Bergen / @mhbergen : “to tackle content that seems to have been primarily created for ranking well in search engines” https://blog.google/... https://twitter.com/... @searchliaison : Our “helpful content update” launching next week will better surface original, helpful content made by people, for people, rather than content made primarily to gain search traffic. It's part of a broad effort to show more unique, authentic info in results https://blog.google/... Jess Weatherbed / @zombie_wretch : Great news if, like me, you tend to slap “reddit” onto the end of search terms to find recommendations that feel like they come from people who have actually used a product, rather than parroting company claims. Jess Weatherbed / @zombie_wretch : Some updates are coming to Google search that should make it easier to find relevant content and reviews, pushing clickbait aggregator websites further down the rankings. https://www.theverge.com/... See also Mediagazer
The VergeJess Weatherbed
Context & Ripple Effects
Google’s people-first ranking policy establishes a quality filter across English Search categories, rather than a narrow change for one vertical. It precedes a later ranking update targeting pages that summarize others’ work, extending the same preference for original, useful material.
The move also sits alongside Google’s stated direction toward a more visual, social, and conversational search experience. Together, the coverage shows Search changing both what it surfaces and the formats it treats as useful.
First-order effects
Publishers and merchants whose pages are primarily designed to capture search traffic face lower visibility, while creators of original, people-focused material are positioned to gain prominence in Google Search.
Google applies the helpful-content standard globally to English results across areas including shopping and technology-related content, making content quality a cross-category ranking concern.
Second-order effects
SEO-focused publishers and commerce sites have an incentive to shift resources from search-oriented page production toward material that demonstrates direct usefulness and originality.
As Google gives less weight to derivative material, businesses that depend on Search traffic face greater exposure to changes in how Google defines helpfulness.
Third-order effects
The later crackdown on pages that summarize others’ work suggests Google is building an enduring distinction between original sources and content assembled mainly to win rankings.
If paired with more visual, social, and AI-led results, Search’s distribution power increasingly depends on Google’s editorial judgments about both source quality and result format.
The trend: Google Search is moving from rewarding content optimized for retrieval toward prioritizing original sources and formats it judges more useful to people.
I'm so curious to see how this plays out. Been saying for months that I think Google is starting to profile language structures to pick out the typical non-nuanced dribble.... Well here it is.... Let's see how this shakes out! https://twitter.com/...
huh. Most clickbait sites get their traffic via other publishers like Taboola or through social like Twitter. Google monetizes them through display ads, not search. https://blog.google/...
They've said this before, yet here we are, in 2022, when half of search results are Vietnam-hosted blogs which don't honor DMCA and are full of content scraped from legitimate news outlets, who typically are buried on the 10th SERP https://twitter.com/...
I have been complaining about this problem for the past month or so. SEO has made the web unlikeable. Anything I search for either goes to some unhelpful listicle or “25 vendors in 2022 who...” The web used to be personal. SEO has made it so corporate. https://blog.google/...
This might be the single best thing to happen to tech journalism in years, *if* it's properly enforced. No one likes reading spam articles with no helpful information, and most writers don't like writing them. https://blog.google/...
Human writers rejoice! AI coders: back to the workshop “to make it easier for people to find helpful content made specifically by and for people” >> Google search updates will prioritize real reviews over clickbait https://www.theverge.com/...
SEOs will look back at this update and it should be like a Panda, Penguin, Florida update type of update - it may change how content SEO is done going forward. Lots of coverage of this update summarized at @Techmeme https://twitter.com/...
We're improving Search so you're less likely to find content made for search engines, and more likely to find helpful, authentic information — particularly for education, entertainment, shopping and tech content. See what else is new on Search. https://blog.google/...
Excited our “helpful content update” launches soon. Been watching team work hard on it, part of a broad continuing effort to bring more authentic info into Google Search. I'm on vacation this week but will try in few hours to answer questions I see, though our posts cover a lot. …
Our “helpful content update” launching next week will better surface original, helpful content made by people, for people, rather than content made primarily to gain search traffic. It's part of a broad effort to show more unique, authentic info in results https://blog.google/...
Great news if, like me, you tend to slap “reddit” onto the end of search terms to find recommendations that feel like they come from people who have actually used a product, rather than parroting company claims.
Some updates are coming to Google search that should make it easier to find relevant content and reviews, pushing clickbait aggregator websites further down the rankings. https://www.theverge.com/...