Major Google SEO Content Update Next Week Something to Watch

Google is rolling out what it calls a "Helpful content update" -- meaning it will advantage helpful content and actively demote content is written for a search engine.

* It starts rolling out next week and could take up to 2 weeks to rollout.

* Particularly in the eCommerce industry, I've seen many SEO agencies write incredibly thin content on a regular basis. That may need to change, or you lose the value of those pages and potentially affect your site if it's overdone.

* Sites can be classified as having "unhelpful content" (it seems like there will be a score). This is not an action, it's based on a model which will monitor you, and it seems like it can penalize you at the site level if there is too much of it. You can recover from it if you "remove unhelpful content."

No word if Google Search Console will be updated to report this.

First the snark -- is there any actual non-SEO content in this day and age? Asking for a friend.

But seriously! The guidance has not really changed, but the fact that Google is messaging this so strongly means that marketers may be in for a bit of trouble. As a reminder:

* Seems like the update will disadvantage "summary" content that does not add value.

* Design for your audience, not for SEO first.

* Saying you will answer a question without an answer (which is something I see all the time!) like "When will the new iPhone release?" or "When will Y movie release?"

not sure how Google will prevent this because this is legit something people type in.

* Don't use automated content generators, or at least those that don't pass the Turing test ;-)