Google announced the September 2023 Helpful Content Update that is expected to finish rolling out in two weeks. The update appears to loosens up on machine generated content while warning about 3rd party content hosted on websites or their subdomains.

Google also added additional guidance to their Helpful Content System documentation with new advice on what to do if a site lost traffic after a Helpful Content update.

Google Helpful Content System

Google has a system called the Helpful Content System for promoting quality content and reducing the search presence of content that is determined to not be helpful.

It is presented by Google as a system that works alongside all the other systems that together rank websites.

This system is primarily focused on identifying signals of quality that correspond to helpful content.

What is The September Helpful Content Update About?

Google updated their Helpful Content System documentation to add guidance in three areas:

1. Loosening the guidance on machine generated content
2. Hosting third-party content on subdomains
3. Offering additional guidance on what to do if your site loses traffic from a Helpful Content update

Google Loosens Guidance on Machine Generated Content

Google’s previous guidance on machine generated content emphasized that the Helpful Content system prioritizes content created by humans.

That part of the guidance is removed, signaling a change in Google’s attitude toward AI content to align it better with other seemingly contradictory guidance on AI content.

The original guidance:

“Google Search’s helpful content system generates a signal used by our automated ranking systems to better ensure people see original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”

The updated guidance:

“Google Search’s helpful content system generates a signal used by our automated ranking systems to better ensure people see original, helpful content created for people in search results.”

Third-Party Content On Main Website Or Subdomains

There is a longstanding trend of hosting third-party content on the main part of a website or on a subdomain.

An example of this is news media websites hosting third-party credit card affiliate content on a subdomain.

The idea behind theses strategies may be that some of the main site’s ranking power would help the subdomain content rank better.

Google’s September 2023 Helpful Content update has made a change that may negatively affect websites that host third-party content anywhere on their website.

A new section added to the Helpful Content guidance advises:

“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.”

Obviously, those who publish guest posts should pay attention to this guidance, particularly the part about the content being relevant to the main site’s purpose or if it is, if the content was created with close supervision.

New Guidance On Recovering From Helpful Content Update

Lastly, Google added new guidance on how to recover should a site be affected by any Helpful Content Update.

The new paragraph added to the documentation recommends identifying unhelpful content and removing or replacing it.

Google’s new guidance:

“If you’ve noticed a change in traffic you suspect may be related to this system (such as after a publicly-posted ranking update to the system), then you should self-assess your content and fix or remove any that seems unhelpful.

Our help page on how to create helpful, reliable people-first content has questions that you can use to self-assess your content to be successful with the helpful content system.”

Read Google’s documentation on the Helpful Content System:

Google Search’s helpful content system and your website