Why is this update being compared to Panda?

The helpful content update is drawing a lot of comparisons with Panda and many SEOs predict this update will have a similar impact.

SEOs that worked through the 2011 Panda update will remember how traumatic it was for website owners. The origins of the first Panda update were rooted in user complaints about the growth of content farms and the diminishing quality of search results.

In response to such criticisms

Google embarked on a war against web overseas data spam with a series of major algorithm updates punishing “black hat” SEO practices – most notably! Panda and Penguin.

More than a decade later! a vocal group of users is complaining about the quality of Google Search results. Some blame publishers for producing low-quality content while others argue Google is responsible for which content ranks in its SERPs! but the growing consensus within this debate is that the quality of Google Search results has declined in recent years.

This is relevant because the environment of the helpful content update feels familiar – not as extreme as the background of Panda but reminiscent.

Context aside! this update shares several similarities with Panda:

• Target: Low-quality content – in What about branded searches & direct traffic? this case! content created for search engines! not users.
• Site-wide update: Like Panda! this is a site-wide update that means individual or groups of pages can affect the ranking of pages across the domain.
• Impact: Google has reportedly described the expected impact of this update as “meaningful”.
• Recovery: Removing affected content/pages can result in recovery.
• Validation: With timeout and validation periods! it could take months to recover rankings after removing/fixing problematic content.

Google’s description of the helpful update content suggests further similarities with Panda! too. It talks about rewarding quality content and! by extension! punishing content created for search engines ahead of users.

It sounds like the technical operation of the update could be similar! too:

“This classifier process is entirely zn business directory automated! using a machine-learning model. It is not a manual action nor a spam action. Instead! it’s just a new signal and one of many signals Google evaluates to rank content.”

The phrase “classifier” sounds a lot like the filter Panda applied to pages flagged up as low-quality.

Despite these similarities! the helpful content update is a completely new signal designed to solve different problems from Panda. The new update is drawing comparisons with Panda because its impact is anticipated to drastically affect how pages rank in Google Search.

What does the helpful content update target?

Google wants publishers to take a “people-first approach” to producing content! reinforced by SEO best practices. As we’ve seen with major content quality updates in the past! Google has published a series of questions to help website owners avoid creating content for search engines first:

• Is the content primarily to attract people from search engines! rather than made for humans?
• Are you producing lots of content on different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results?
• Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?
• Are you mainly summarising what others have to say without adding much value?
• Are you writing about things simply because they’re trending and not because you’d write about them otherwise for your existing audience?
• Does your content leave readers feeling like they need to search again to get better information from other sources?
• Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No! we don’t).
• Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise! but instead mainly because you thought you’d get search traffic?
• Does your content promise to answer a question that actually has no answer! such as suggesting there’s a release date for a product! movie! or TV show when one isn’t confirmed?

In its initial announcement for the helpful content update! Google repeats the phrase “people-first” on nine occasions.