What Does the Helpful Content Update REALLY Mean for SEO?

A year-long drama of Google’s Helpful Content system has finally ended. Here’s what we know.

Google’s biggest goal is not surfacing embarrassing content. They have been surprisingly failing at that for years (especially with AI Overview roll-out).

Hence the Helpful Content signal which went wrong but they wouldn’t admit that.

So what happened in a year of Helpful Content system?

This screenshot describes this well:

Is there a way to recover from Helpful Content?

There’s no confirmed way to recover from Helpful Content.

Period.

Don’t ever fall for SEO services that promise a recovery.

In fact, this is a huge red flag, just like “guaranteed rankings.”

Here’s why:

• Some publishers recovered after working hard on their sites and content

• Some sites recovered without having done ANYTHING

So there’s no way to tell if any actions could have helped.

Here’s what some recovered sites did:

• Slowed down on new content creation

• Focused on updating old content and removing pages that seemed of low value (this is something we had been doing for Panda Update recovery years ago but again, there’s no way to confidently say if this helped for HCU because other recovered sites did nothing)

• Built links (read this study)

So basically nothing new.

What all un-impacted sites had in common

Now, let’s talk about sites that have never been impacted by Helpful Content. They have two things in common:

• Lots of traffic from 0-search-volume queries. It is likely a correlation than any significant signal but if you have a great content idea, write and publish it even if you cannot match that idea to a searchable keyword. Overall, keywords are great and use them for content ideas, but expand beyond keyword research tools. Add your personal opinion, do a quick poll, describe your personal experience, etc. Add something unique to anything you write. That's where 0-search-volume queries come from.

• Links and branded searches rule. Nothing new here. I’ve been saying this for ages. If you have a strong backlink profile and people find you by searching for your brand name, you’ll likely survive any update. Work on your links, especially those that help with brand awareness (like those we build).

So what does it all mean for SEO

Sorry to disappoint but nothing new.

Good old SEO fundamentals (content, links, branding) are still key.

Don’t forget that Helpful Content is now part of Google’s Core Updates, so there will no longer be specific HC updates. 

There’s no specific cure if your site is ever impacted by core updates. It is all about high-quality SEO audits and focusing on what’s missing or can be improved. Just like it has always been.