Google releases the September 2023 Helpful Content Update

Well, here we go once again. Google recently announced that the August 2023 Core Update was released by the last week of August and it is worth noting that the update ended just last week as it takes two weeks for the update to fully roll out. Now, the reason why we are seeing here we go again is because another update is rolling out from Google. How fun would it be to work as an SEO right now? Anyways, the official tracking page for Google updates shows that the HCU is rolling out now and it started on September 14.

Talking about the HCU from Google, it started since last year when they decided to unearth a new update in order to provide “helpful content” for the users in search results. This time around, there seems to be a pattern forming with the helpful content update from Google which is that it always comes right after the core update is released. While this time around, Google did not even take a breather to roll out the update, it usually happens that the two updates are released within a few months of each other.

The one thing that seems to be a major factor in this helpful content update is the use of subdomains from various authoritative sites in order to publish guest posts and these posts rank so well on Google Search that it is totally worth the ROI. We saw that a lot of Twitter posts were concentrated around how Outlook India was ranking so well for the content that is not even written by them and is basically guest posts or sponsored ones. Obviously, this caught the attention of Google and they have specifically mentioned such tactics in their guidance for this update.

Google says:

“If you host third-party content on your main site or in your subdomains, understand that such content may be included in site-wide signals we generate, such as the helpfulness of content.

For this reason, if that content is largely independent of the main site’s purpose or produced without close supervision or the involvement of the primary site, we recommend that it should be blocked from being indexed by Google.”