Google Search will begin showing more pages written ‘by people, for people’

Kyle Bradshaw | Aug 18 2022 - 9:00 am PT

Today, Google is outlining the upcoming “helpful content update” that should make your search results more useful and more likely to have been written by an actual human.

For nearly as long as there have been search engines, there has been the trade of search engine optimization (or SEO). Used appropriately, SEO can be a fantastic skill that helps smaller creators get discovered through Google Search.

Of course, the flip side is that SEO techniques are often abused, leading to the creation of websites that are written for the benefit of Google’s algorithms, not for real people to read. Google itself acknowledges that problem, noting that some pages in search results “may not even seem like [they were] created for, or even by, a person.”

In its latest, and perhaps most drastic measure to-date, Google has unveiled the “helpful content update” which will begin rolling out next week for English search results, with support for more languages coming soon. As the name suggests, the changes are focused on separating sites and pages into categories of “helpful” or “unhelpful.” This categorization is used as a new metric for ranking where a page should appear in the search results.

Given the complexity of Google Search’s algorithms, we weren’t given precise details of what is or isn’t considered helpful. To give an idea of what the company is looking for, though, Google has provided a few questions to act as a guideline. Wherever possible, web creators should aim to be able to answer “yes” to these questions.

Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find the content useful if they came directly to you?
Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place)?
Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?
After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?
Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they’ve had a satisfying experience?
Are you keeping in mind our guidance for core updates and for product reviews?

Importantly, these metrics will affect more than just individual pages. If Google Search determines that a website contains more unhelpful content than other sites, all of that site’s content will be negatively affected. And this is just the beginning, with Google promising more helpful, “people-first” updates to the search engine.

Elsewhere, Google is also continuing its recent efforts to improve the quality of product reviews that are shown in search results. The next set of tweaks will help surface “high quality, original reviews” and will arrive in the coming weeks.