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Google’s Helpful Content & Link Spam Updates Completed Rolling Out On January 12, 2023

Published

1 year ago

January 14, 2023

After a long slow, and paused rollout, Google has said that both the December 2022 helpful content update and December 2022 link spam update are now both done rolling out. Google said both completed rolling out on Thursday, January 12, 2023.

The December 2022 helpful content update started on December 5, 2022, and was completed rolling out about 38 days afterward.

While the December 2022 link spam update started on December 14, 2022, and was completed 29 days later.

Both these updates should have been done rolling out after 14 days, so it took a lot longer.

The two updates were delayed in its finish date because they ran into the holidays. Google said there was a security issue with completing them on the holidays, so they took a pause. We saw movement from these updates around December 18th and 19th and then some big turbulence days before Christmas, and then things calmed down a lot. We then also saw some fluctuations on December 26th, again on January 3rd to 5th, and then again on January 10th and 11th.

December 2022 Google Helpful Content Update Quick Facts

Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:

Name: Google helpful content update

Launch Date: It began to rollout on December 5th but not so noticeable until December 6th

Completion Date: January 12, 2023, 38 days later

Rollout: It will take about two weeks to fully roll out (it took much longer)

Targets: It looks at content that was created to rank well in search over help humans

Search Only: This currently only impacts Google Search, not Google Discover or other Google surfaces. But Google may expand this to Discover and more in the future.

Penalty: Google did not mention penalty but this update does seem to feel like a penalty for sites that will be hit by it

Sitewide: This is a sitewide algorithm, so the whole site will be impacted by this update

Not a core update: Many are going to say this is a core update, it is not.

Global and all languages: This is no longer just for English-language content, it is now all languages and global.

Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update but Google did tell me it would be “meaningful.” Also, Google said this will be felt more for online-educational materials, entertainment, shopping, and tech-related content.

Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google’s advice below

Refreshes: Google updates the scores constantly here but there is a timeout period, and a validation period and it can take several months to recover from this update.

December 2022 Google Link Spam Update Quick Facts

Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:

Name: Google December 2022 Link Spam Update

Launch Date: It began to roll out on December 14th

Completion Date: January 12, 2023, 29 days later

Rollout: It will take about two weeks to fully roll out (it took much longer)

Targets: It targets both sites buying links, and sites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links.

Penalty: This will “neutralize” links that it detects as being spam and thus links that are detected won’t be counted and may show a decline in rankings.

Not a manual action: This is not a manual action, so you won’t be notified in Search Console if you are hit.

Global and all languages: This is a global launch and affects all languages.

SpamBrain: This is the first time Google is using its AI-based spam detection, i.e., SpamBrain, for link spam purposes.

Here is that infographic I made showing the 2022 Google updates and now when they are all completed:

So let’s stick a fork in it – or maybe two forks?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Source: www.seroundtable.com

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Google Won’t Change The 301 Signals For Ranking & SEO

Published

8 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that there is no way that Google would change how the 301 redirect signal works for SEO or search rankings. Gary added that it’s a very reliable signal.

Nikola Minkov quoted Gary Illyes as saying, “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal,” when asked if a 301 redirect not working is a myth. Honestly, I am not sure the context of this question, as it is not clear from the post on X, but here it is:

More from @methode:
– 301 redirect not working is a myth. “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal”.#SERPConf2024 #SERPConf2024International
— Nikola Minkov (@n_minkov) April 19, 2024

We’ve covered 301 redirects here countless times – but I never saw a myth that Google does not use 301 redirects as a signal for canonicalization or for passing signals from an old URL to the redirected URL.

Forum discussion at X.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.

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Google Again Says Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages

Published

1 day ago

April 23, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

I am not sure how many times Google has said that you do not need to disavow spammy links, that you can ignore link spam attacks and that links pointing to pages that 404/410 are links that do not count – but John Mueller from Google said it again.

In a thread on X, John Mueller from Google wrote, “if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped.” “They do nothing,” he added, “If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link.”

John then added, “I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.”

Asking if it would hurt to disavow, after responding with the messages above, John wrote:

It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).

Earlier this year we had tons of SEOs notice spammy links to 404 error pages, John said ignore them. In 2021, Google said links to 404 pages do not count, Google also said that in 2012 and many other times.

Plus, outside of links to 404 pages, Google has said to ignore spammy links, time and time again – even the toxic links – ignore them. The messaging around this changed in 2016 when Penguin 4.0 was released and Google began devaluing links over demoting them.

Here are those new posts in context:

I’d say add both. Lol
— Jeremy Rivera (@JeremyRiveraSEO) April 11, 2024

Sure. But also, save yourself the work completely :-).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

Re-reading your initial post – if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped. They do nothing. If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link. I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

… but still… is this a dumb idea?
— Rebekah Edwards (@rebekah_creates) April 11, 2024
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It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

And in general, Google says it ignores spammy links, so you should too (not new) but this post from John Mueller is:

I would just ignore them, Google ignores them too. Sometimes they’re just more visible in tools, but that doesn’t mean they’re a problem.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 18, 2024

And then also on Mastodon wrote about a similar situation, “Google has 2 decades of practice of ignoring spammy links. There’s no need to do anything for those links.”

Forum discussion at X.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.

SEARCHENGINES

Google Needs Very Few Links To Rank Pages; Links Are Less Important

Published

2 days ago

April 22, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Gary Illyes from Google spoke at the SERP Conf on Friday and he said what he said numerous times before, that Google values links a lot less today than it did in the past. He added that Google Search “needs very few links to rank pages.”

Gary reportedly said, “We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.”

I am quoting Patrick Stox who is quoting what he heard Gary say on stage at the event. Here is Patrick’s post where Gary did a rare reply:

I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that
— Gary 鯨理／경리 Illyes (so official, trust me) (@methode) April 19, 2024

Gary said this a year ago, also in 2022 and other times as well. We previously covered that Google said links would likely become even less important in the future. And even Matt Cutts, the former Googler, said something similar about eight years ago and the truth is, links are weighted a lot less than it was eight years ago and that trend continues. A couple of years ago, Google said links are not the most important Google search ranking factor.

Of course, many SEOs think Google lies about this.

Judith Lewis interviewed Gary Illyes at the SERP Conf this past Friday.

Forum discussion at X and image credit to @n_minkov.