For as long as Google and its Search engine has existed, millions have been spent by even the biggest and largest of companies, simply to create “SEO-friendly” content that makes them appear on Google’s prized search positions. That led to a massive clutter of “agencies” and freelancers, who would use just the right keywords and phrasing to create SEO friendly content, enough to trick Google’s rather advanced algorithm. That practice, could stop soon.
In a fresh announcement hot off the press, Google has said that come next week, it will launch the “helpful content update” to tackle content that seems to have been primarily created for ranking well in search engines rather than to help or inform people. This ranking update will help make sure that unoriginal, low quality content doesn’t rank highly in Search. “Our testing has found it will especially improve results related to online education, as well as arts and entertainment, shopping and tech-related content”, said Google’s Public Liason for Search, Danny Sullivan in a blog post.
For example, if you search for information about a new movie, you might have previously seen articles that aggregated reviews from other sites without adding perspectives beyond what’s available elsewhere. This isn’t very helpful if you’re expecting to read something new. With this update, you’ll see more results with unique, authentic information, so you’re more likely to read something you haven’t seen before.
So what would this mean for content creators? Well, if you are creating high-quality, read-worthy original content, you need not worry much, and keep your general SEO intact. If you are on the other side of the content marketing table, things are bound to get tougher for you. Google says it would continue to refine systems further to this new ambition, and would continue to make it tougher for unoriginal, low quality content to appear higher on search results.
In fact, Google says it would take this update to “Reviews” as well. It is a well-known fact how certain businesses take advantage of getting fake reviews posted, sometimes through agencies or bots, in order to drum up consumer purchases. Google wants to change that. It will hence roll out another update to make it even easier to find high-quality, original reviews. “We’ll continue this work to make sure you find the most useful information when you’re researching a purchase on the web”, added Sullivan in the blog post.
