Google’s Helpful Content System is a machine learning-based system that predicts whether the content is likely to be helpful for a searcher. If your content consistently falls short of these predictions, your site may be classified as having ‘unhelpful content,’ impacting your organic search traffic and rankings.
This system is part of Google’s broader initiative to enhance its search results using Artificial Intelligence (AI). Google’s AI-driven systems, such as the Search Generative Experience (SGE) and Bard AI chat technology, are reshaping our search experiences, making aligning your content with these systems more critical than ever.
Google’s Helpful Content System is integral to its search engine algorithm, influencing how content is ranked and displayed in search results. From an SEO standpoint, understanding this system is crucial for creating content that aligns with Google’s quality standards and improves your website’s visibility.
Google’s Perspective: The Helpful Content System and Your Website
Google’s resources provide a wealth of information on the Helpful Content System. According to Google Search Central, the system generates a signal used by Google’s automated ranking systems to ensure that original, helpful content written by people, for people, is prioritized in search results.
The Helpful Content System aims to reward content where visitors feel they’ve had a satisfying experience. Conversely, content that doesn’t meet a visitor’s expectations won’t perform as well. The system generates a site-wide signal that is considered among many other signals for use in Google Search, including Google Discover. It automatically identifies content that seems to have little value, has low-added value, or is not particularly helpful to people.
Interestingly, any content on sites with relatively high unhelpful content overall is less likely to perform well in Search. This is because there is expected other content elsewhere on the web that’s better to display. For this reason, removing unhelpful content could help the rankings of your other content.
The process of classifying content is entirely automated, using a machine-learning model. It works globally across all languages and is not a manual or spam action. Instead, it’s just one of many signals Google evaluates to rank content.
This means that some content on sites classified as having unhelpful content could still rank well if there are other signals identifying that content as helpful and relevant to a query. The signal is also weighted; sites with lots of unhelpful content may notice a more potent effect.
To create successful content with the Helpful Content System, Google recommends creating helpful, reliable people-first content rather than search-engine-first content. It provides questions that you can ask yourself when assessing your content.
A common question is how long it will take for a site to do better if it removes unhelpful content. Sites identified by this system may find the signal applied to them over months. The classifier runs continuously, allowing it to monitor newly-launched and existing sites. The classification will no longer apply as it determines that the unhelpful content hasn’t returned in the long term.
Periodically, Google refines how the classifier detects unhelpful content. When this happens notably, Google shares this as a “helpful content update” on their Google Search ranking updates page. After such an update finishes rolling out, and if the refined classifier sees that content has improved, then the unhelpful classification from the previous classifier may no longer apply.
This insight from Google further emphasizes the importance of creating high-quality, helpful content that meets the needs of your audience. It also underscores the importance of regularly reviewing and updating your content to ensure it remains helpful and relevant.
John Mueller from Google made a noteworthy comment regarding SEO and Google ranking. According to him, “No ranking factor can make up for the lack of relevance or user interest.” He further elaborated that we often overlook the fact that a website doesn’t simply rank on its own; it ranks based on its relevance to the search query.
Insights from SEO Expert Marie Haynes
Marie Haynes, a renowned SEO expert, has extensively studied Google’s AI systems and their impact on search rankings. She emphasizes that the key to ranking aligns with Google’s quality descriptions in the Quality Rater’s Guidelines.
Haynes explains that Google assesses the quality of a page by asking questions like, “Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?” or, “Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?”
Google uses a complex system of machine learning models to create signals that can be used in their ranking algorithms. The goal is to present the searcher with pages that will likely be helpful and satisfy their search intent.
Haynes believes that when it comes to ranking, nothing is more important than aligning with Google’s criteria for the quality they have laid out in their documentation on creating helpful content, essentially a summary of the rater guidelines. I suggest you read her Google’s Helpful Content & Other AI Systems May Be Impacting Your Site’s Visibility article.
Tips and Tricks for Creating Helpful Content
Understand Your Audience: Knowing your audience’s needs, interests, and search habits is crucial. Create content that answers their questions and provides value.
Align with Google’s Quality Rater’s Guidelines: These guidelines provide a roadmap for what Google considers high-quality content. Familiarize yourself with these guidelines and ensure your content aligns with them.
Provide Insightful Analysis: Google values content that offers unique insights and analysis. Make sure your content goes beyond stating the obvious and provides in-depth information.
Ensure High-Quality Writing: Poor grammar, spelling, and sloppy writing can harm your content’s perceived quality. Always proofread and edit your content before publishing.
Avoid Duplicate Content: Google penalizes sites with duplicate, overlapping, or redundant content. Ensure your content is original and unique.
Use Relevant Keywords: Keywords help Google understand your content’s topic. However, avoid keyword stuffing, as it can lead to penalties.
Optimize for Mobile: With most searches happening on mobile devices, ensuring your content is mobile-friendly is crucial.
Improve User Experience: A good user experience can improve your site’s dwell time, reducing bounce rates and signaling to Google that your site is helpful to visitors.
Keep Content Up to Date: Regularly updating your content ensures it remains relevant and helpful to users, which Google rewards.
Use High-Quality Links: Linking to reputable sources can boost your content’s credibility and rank.
Based on Google’s Helpful Content System, this checklist will guide you as you create a new piece of helpful content.
Even with technical SEO enhancements and backlinks, if your organic traffic remains below a specific level, it’s possible that Google doesn’t perceive your site’s content as helpful. By understanding Google’s Helpful Content System and implementing these tips, you can improve your content’s quality, align with Google’s standards, and enhance your SEO performance.
