Google Rolls Out December 2022 “Helpful Content” Update

Google is in the process of rolling out its December 2022 “helpful content” system update, which started on the 5th and is becoming more visible in search results. The company estimates it will take approximately two weeks to fully roll out. The helpful content system generates a signal that is used by Google’s automated ranking systems to provide people with what it deems to be more original and helpful content “written by people, for people” in search results. This particular update improves the system’s classifier and works across content in all languages. The system was designed to reward content where Google determines that visitors have had a satisfying experience and, conversely, where visitors do not find what they are looking for, the content will not perform as well. This is distilled into a site-wide signal where Google’s systems automatically identify “content that seems to have little value, low-added value or is otherwise not particularly helpful to those doing searches.” If Google finds relatively high amounts of unhelpful content on a site, the rest of the site’s content is not as likely to perform well in Search. With this application of the system, unhelpful content is like a poison for the…

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