Google September 2023 Helpful Content Update – Changes To The Algorithm

Google has announced its September 2023 content update which includes two major changes to the way sites are ranked.

1. Google is loosening guidelines around AI-generated content
2. Useful Content System cracks down on third-party content hosted on subdomains or the main body of a website
3. New alerts about fake page updates and fake update attempts
4. Google's Gary Illyes provides insight into how to identify a useful content platform for cross-site mentions.
5. New instructions on how to recover from a help content update

Google has announced the September 2023 Assistant Content Update, which is expected to be rolled out within two weeks. The update appears to reduce machine-generated content by warning about third-party content hosted on websites or their subdomains.

Google has also added additional guidance to its Help Content System documentation with new tips on what to do if a site loses traffic after updating help content.

Google Assistant content system

Google has a system called the Helpful Content System to promote high-quality content and reduce the appearance of useless content in search.

It is offered by Google as a system that works with all other systems that rank websites.

This system mainly focuses on identifying quality signals that correspond to useful content.

What is the topic of the September Help content update?

Google has updated its Help Content System documentation to include guidance in three areas:

• Reduced guidance on machine-generated content
• Host third party content on subdomains (or on the main domain).
• Provide additional guidance on what to do if your site loses traffic from helpful content updates
• Google is relaxing guidelines around machine-generated content
• Google's previous guidelines on machine-generated content emphasized that its useful content system prioritizes human-generated content.

This portion of the guidelines has been removed, signaling a change in Google's stance on AI content to better align it with the seemingly contradictory guidelines on AI content.

Original guide:

"Our automatic ranking system uses a signal generated by Google Search's useful content engine to ensure that consumers see original, helpful information written by people for users in search results."

Latest guidance:

“Our automatic ranking algorithm employs a signal that is produced by Google Search's helpful content engine to make sure that users receive unique, relevant information in search results.”

Third party content on the main site or subdomains

There is a long-standing trend of hosting third-party content on the main body or subdomain of a website.

An example of this is news media sites that host third-party credit card related content on a subdomain.

The idea behind these strategies may be that some important site ranking strengths will help the subdomain content rank better.

Google's September 2023 Assistant Content Update made a change that may negatively impact websites that host third-party content anywhere on their website.

A new section included in the Help Content Update Guide recommends the following:

Please be aware that any third-party content you host on your main website or any of its subdomains may be included in the site-wide signals we create, such as support content.

For this reason, if this content is largely independent of the primary site's purpose or was produced without the close oversight or involvement of the primary site, we recommend blocking it from indexing by Google. "

Publishers should take these guidelines seriously, especially the part about content that is relevant to the site's main purpose or if the content is not created with careful supervision.

The self-assessment guide has been updated for useful content.

Changes have been made to Google's useful content self-assessment guidelines, creating useful, trustworthy content that puts people first.

The following new guidelines have been added to the updated Self-Assessment Guidelines.

1. The first change is to add the word “revised” while keeping the rest of the sentence the same:

Is the content written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well?

2. This new addition to the guidelines relates to page updates:

"When the content hasn't changed much, do you alter the history of the pages to make them appear new?"

3. The last addition is also about freshness:

In order to "refresh" your website and improve its search engine results, are you mostly writing new material or removing a lot of outdated content? In general, it will be helpful. (It won't, no.

Google's Gary Ellis discusses the September 2023 help content update.

Gary Ellis posted some background on the focus on what he calls microsites, noting that many people reported sites they felt should not be ranked.

Gary posted on LinkedIn:

“We've heard (and observed) that some sites 'rent' their subdomains, or sometimes even subdirectories, to third parties, usually on these small, new, and usually low-quality sites. Without any oversight of the hosted content, they don't have anything to do with Parent site.

In fact, microsites are rarely linked to the original sites, which actually do not want to endorse these often questionable sites.

The only reason why the owners of these small (?) questionable sites rent subsites is to manipulate search results.

Gary Ellis answered a question about site-wide signals.

Someone in the LinkedIn thread asked about guidelines for whether third-party content on a main site or subdomain can be included as part of the site-wide signals used by Google, such as those related to the Signal useful content system.

Requested:

"Am I right in assuming that all subdomains are affected by site-wide signals generated at the host level? Or do they only apply to certain signals such as content support?"

Gary Ellis replied:

“Some signals are URL levels, other patterns, other hosts, other domains. So, yeah...”

Updated Help content system documentation.

Another change

New guidance on recovery from Help content update

Finally, Google has added new instructions on how to restore a site if it is affected by any useful content updates.

A new paragraph added to the documentation suggests identifying and removing or replacing unhelpful content.

New Google Guidelines:

"You should update your content whenever you see a change in traffic that you think might be caused by the system (for instance, following the publication of a rating update in the system). One should evaluate themselves and fix or get rid of everything that doesn't seem to be beneficial.

Our help page on how to create useful, reliable content that puts people first contains questions you can use to self-evaluate your content for success with the Helpful Content System.

Read Google's documentation on the Help Content System:

Useful content system for Google search and your website