Helpful or not, here it comes
Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Name:\xa0Google helpful content update
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Launch Date:\xa0It began to rollout on\xa0August 25th
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Rollout:\xa0It will take about two weeks to fully roll out
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Targets:\xa0It looks at content that was created to rank well in search over help humans
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Search Only:\xa0This currently only impacts Google Search, not Google Discover or other Google surfaces. But Google may expand this to Discover and more in the future.
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Penalty:\xa0Google did not mention penalty but this update does seem to feel like a penalty for sites that will be hit by it
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Sitewide:\xa0This is a sitewide algorithm, so the whole site will be impacted by this update
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Not a core update:\xa0Many are going to say this is a core update, it is not.
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0English Language but will expand:\xa0This is only looking at English-language content globally now but likely will expand to other languages.
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Impact:\xa0Google 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.
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Recover:\xa0If 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
\xb7\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0Refreshes:\xa0Google 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.
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