• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • 020 3330 7010
  • marketing@allresponsemedia.com
  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
ARM logo

All Response Media

  • Home
  • About ARM
    • About ARM
    • Meet the Team
  • Our Services
    • TV
    • Digital
      • PPC
      • SEO
      • CRO
      • Social Media
      • Programmatic
    • Offline Media
      • TV
      • TV Execution
      • Press
      • Radio
      • Inserts
      • Door to Door
      • Outdoor
      • DRTV
    • Analytics
    • ARMalytics®
  • Success Stories
    • Client Success Stories
    • TV Star Competition UK
    • TV Star Competition NL
    • Our Work With Startups
  • Content Hub
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / SEO / 3 things to do if you’ve been negatively hit by a Google update 

3 things to do if you’ve been negatively hit by a Google update 

28th September 2022 by Jonathan Argile

Google has introduced a ‘helpful content update’ – but how could this impact your site?

Google’s latest algorithm update aims to crack down on clickbait written for higher search rankings. The update is sitewide, meaning it has the potential to affect all pages.

What will change? 

Google is constantly working to improve the way it evaluates content to provide more value to the end-user. Essentially, this is to ensure people are receiving original, relevant, and therefore helpful content that is written for them (and not by bots). Without an audience-first and data-driven marketing approach, some businesses could see a drop in organic visibility and traffic as a result. 

The update is currently applicable to English language content but is likely to roll out across other languages soon. 

Will the update impact your site?

Google shared a list of questions to consider when evaluating the relevancy of your on-site content; the answer could determine whether your site is impacted by the update.

  • Is your content primarily to attract people from search engines or is it made for humans? 
  • Are you using extensive automation to produce content on multiple topics? 
  • Does your on-site content leave readers feeling like they need to search again or look elsewhere for more information? 

The helpful content signal is weighted, simply meaning if your site does have more ‘unhelpful’ content, you’ll notice a bigger impact – so now may be a good time to review content across your site. 

What is a Google Core update? 

The helpful content update does coincide with a Google Core update, so, it may be difficult for businesses to pinpoint the exact cause of any long-term changes. Google make significant broad changes to search algorithms several times a year. 

Google: “They’re designed to ensure that overall, we’re delivering on our mission to present relevant and authoritative content to searchers.” 

 Google core updates can also have implications for online businesses, especially those relying on organic traffic. If your site is demoted in Google’s index, it’s likely because it’s perceived to have issues with relevance and authority. 

What can you do to stay on top of Google’s updates? 

As with any search engine algorithm update, monitoring traffic and ranking changes is essential, but there are a few steps you could take now to reduce the impact. 

1.    Ensure content differentiates from competitors  

2.    Use first-party data and expertise within your business  

3.    Position yourself as your target audience and ensure you’re distributing content that will benefit them  

4.    Consider removing, updating, or redirecting unhelpful or outdated content  

What to do if you think you have been negatively hit by an update?

Data is key to understanding why you have seen a drop in performance and to identify what element of your site has been hit, you can use data in 3 key ways to avoid being negatively hit by a Google update.

Jonathan Argile
Head of SEO
Digital Advertising Agency London

  1. Check your analytics data and identify what organic landing pages have seen any significant changes to traffic or conversions 
     
  1. Review your ranking data to identify individual keywords or wider clusters which have dropped in position. Also check historical data to make sure it is due to the algorithm change and not something seasonal. 
     
  1. Take a look into your Search Console data and review both queries and pages for any changes. Also look to apply device and country filters to gain a more granular view of your data. 

FEATURED READS

Are TV and digital advertisers underspending?

Deliveroo ad platform provides advertising opportunity for brands

Marketing effectiveness in the digital era

Want to let us know about a search campaign you are planning? 

Get in touch with our SEO team today and find out how we can combine data with digital advertising expertise to drive business performance. 

Contact Us Blog

ALL RESPONSE MEDIA SERVICES

Subscribe For More

Newsletter Signup

Footer

ARM logo

The Leading Performance Media Agency

Building businesses and brands by providing clients with an Unfair Competitive Advantage.
ARMalytics®

Get In Touch

London: Sutton Yard, 65 Goswell Road, EC1V 7EN
Phone: +44 (0) 20 3330 7000

Leeds: Marshalls Mill, Marshall Street, LS11 9YJ
Phone: +44 (0) 20 3330 8050

Amsterdam: Koivistokade 3, 1013 AC
Phone: +31 6 3761 9020

marketing@allresponsemedia.com

Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | Modern Slavery Policy

  • E-mail
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Our Newsletter

Subscribe to receive exclusive media insights straight to your inbox. We respect your privacy.

Newsletter Signup

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

ARM logo
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are essential to provide you with services available through our website and to enable you to use certain features of our website.

If you disable this cookie, we cannot provide you certain services on our website and we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

Analytical and Performance Cookies

These cookies are used to collect information to analyse the traffic to our website and how visitors are using our website.

For example, these cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the website or the pages you visit which helps us to understand how we can improve our website for you.

The information collected through these tracking and performance cookies do not identify any individual visitor.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Advertising and Targeting Cookies

These cookies are used to show advertising that is likely to be of interest to you based on your browsing habits.

These cookies, as served by our content and/or advertising providers, may combine information they collected from our website with other information they have independently collected relating to your web browser's activities across their network of websites.

If you choose to remove or disable these targeting or advertising cookies, you will still see adverts but they may not be relevant to you.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!

Cookie Policy

More information about our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy