Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
This update introduces a new site-wide signal that we consider among many other signals for ranking web pages. Our systems automatically identify content that seems to have little value, low-added value or is otherwise not particularly helpful to those doing searches.
Any content — not just unhelpful content — on sites determined to have relatively high amounts of unhelpful content overall is less likely to perform well in Search, assuming there is other content elsewhere from the web that's better to display. For this reason, removing unhelpful content could help the rankings of your other content.
A natural question some will have is how long will it take for a site to do better, if it removes unhelpful content? Sites identified by this update may find the signal applied to them over a period of months. Our classifier for this update runs continuously, allowing it to monitor newly-launched sites and existing ones. As it determines that the unhelpful content has not returned in the long-term, the classification will no longer apply.
This classifier process is entirely automated, using a machine-learning model. It is not a manual action nor a spam action. Instead, it's just a new signal and one of many signals Google evaluates to rank content.
Does your content promise to answer a question that actually has no answer, such as suggesting there's a release date for a product, movie, or TV show when one isn't confirmed?
Are you writing to a particular word count because you've heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don't).
a new site-wide signal
Avoid creating content for search engines first... Answering yes to some or all of the questions is a warning sign that you should reevaluate how you're creating content across your site....
- Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines, rather than made for humans?
- Are you producing lots of content on different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results?
- Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?
- Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value?
- Are you writing about things simply because they seem trending and not because you'd write about them otherwise for your existing audience?
- Does your content leave readers feeling like they need to search again to get better information from other sources?
- Are you writing to a particular word count because you've heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don't).
- Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise, but instead mainly because you thought you'd get search traffic?
- Does your content promise to answer a question that actually has no answer, such as suggesting there's a release date for a product, movie, or TV show when one isn't confirmed?
[edited by: ne0h at 12:58 pm (utc) on Aug 19, 2022]
They perfectly fit into this category: "Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines, rather than made for humans?"
That sentence seems like the definition of what people call niche sites these days.
the "Farmer Update"
My thoughts are simple.
A page's usefulness could vary wildly depending on what query surfaced it. The same page could be an excellent result for one search and useless for another. Webmasters have limited control over the difference, alas.
If memory serves correctly it would have been around the "Farmer Update"
Yes, "Farmer" was the Panda update, which had goals very similar to this update. Clearly the landscape of low-quality content has changed again and they needed a new approach.
Most likely this update will "hit" far fewer websites than Panda did.
