How Google Updates Impact SEO

I ignored semantic SEO for 15 years. Then we got crushed by Google's core update in October 2023. For most of my career, keywords, links, and engagement were where I focused my efforts. "Google indexes things, not strings"? Whatever. Knowledge graphs? Freebase / KGIDs / entity relationships / Meh. Then we lost 50% of our organic traffic overnight. When 5,500 of your 11,000+ pages get traffic and the rest are dying on the vine, Google notices. When your entity (Company / Brand) isn't clearly defined in their knowledge graph, they don't know who you are and if they don’t know who you are then they certainly can’t trust you. Here's how we learned our lesson: 🔴 Pre-Oct 2023: 11,000 pages, 50% getting zero traffic 🔴 Oct 5, 2023: Core update hits, rankings collapse 🟡 Nov 2023: Knowledge graph audit reveals the truth 🟢 Dec 2023: Content purge + entity optimization begins 🟢 Jan 2024: Finally started to recover 🟢 Aug 2024: Hallelujah we’re back baby! The recovery playbook was clear. We went on a content diet, cutting half our pages. We rebuilt our knowledge graph presence by: - Crafting a semantically-optimized company description (deployed everywhere) - Creating an entity home with schema markup - Establishing our "same as" relationships across platforms - Getting into Wikidata and building third-party mentions Within months, our knowledge panel returned. By August, our organic traffic had recovered, and our rankings were stronger than before the penalty. Still, it was pretty scary and the recovery happened after AI had shifted the search landscape forever. Here’s the lesson: Google isn't just counting links or matching phrases anymore—it's evaluating if you're a trusted entity in your space. Control your narrative or someone else will. That's not just SEO — it's survival. (And, spoiler: it’s even more important in an AI-driven search landscape). — Hey -- I'm Jason. I write about: 🔍 Semantic SEO that actually works 🤖 LLM marketing strategies for growth teams 🚀 Building visibility in the AI-first world DM or just follow along! #seo #llms #organicgrowth

Last week, Google rolled out a massive update & it was a bloodbath for some AI-generated content. Here’s what we know and how you should respond: 👉 **40% reduction in “unhelpful” content** Google updated the core algorithm to try to target low-quality, “unhelpful” content. This means that pages that Google deems as unhelpful should be less likely to rank in the SERPs. What makes content “unhelpful”? Past Helpful Content Updates (HCU) have indicated that Google assesses helpfulness based on: - Original information, reporting, research, or analysis - Comprehensive overview of the topic - Goes “beyond the obvious” - Descriptive and helpful titles and headings - (Mostly) free of spelling and stylistic errors - Well produced and presented 👉 **Manual actions for “PURE SPAM”** In addition to algorithmic updates targeting “unhelpful” content, Google also handed out hundreds or thousands of manual actions. This means that they felt the algorithm changes alone did not sufficiently punish the worst offenders. The sites are now marked as “PURE SPAM” and mostly/totally de-indexed. 😬 👉 **Scaled content abuse** Google also targeted, “scaled content abuse.” In other words: Thin pages with programatically- and AI-generated content could be considered scaled content abuse and punished. Make sure that procedurally-generated content provides enough value to meet the “helpful content” guidelines above. 👉 **Parasite SEO** Google took a swipe at so-called “parasite SEO.” Basically, content that piggybacks off of an existing site’s authority to rank for all kinds of unrelated keywords. E.g.: A major local newspaper publishing an article or sponsored content about the “best appetite suppressants.” We can surmise that this indicates more focus on topical authority as a signal. In other words, if you’re publishing content on a wide array of different topics, it could send up red flags. 𝘚𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘱𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘦? First: DON’T PANIC. Most of the sites severely impacted were egregious offenders—the “SEO goblins” flooding the internet with content to make a quick buck. *Your site was likely not impacted.* (But, feel free to DM me if it was or you’re worried about it.) Some takeaways: ✅ Use AI primarily as a drafting, outlining, or editing tool. Avoid publishing AI-generated content without human review and editing. ✅ Double down on creating “helpful content”—think, content that could not possibly be created by current AI technology. ✅ Focus your strategy. Rather than slinging topics at random, try to build a focused moat of the topics most important to your business. ✅ Assess the value of any programmatic or AI-generated content on your site. If it’s, “purely for search,” then look for ways to add value for humans. Happy to answer questions (to the best of my abilities). Good luck in the SERPs! ✌️ — If this was "helpful content": 1. Follow or connect on LinkedIn 👋 2. Share!

Boom: Core, HCU into core, and Spam -> You wanted a big update? Well, here's a BIG update. REALLY BIG. The March 2024 core update is rolling out, but it's more complex than previous core updates. Google said it will reduce unhelpful content in the SERPs by 40% and will use a variety of innovative signals and approaches to do so. It will take several weeks for the update to roll out, maybe even a month. *Multiple systems* within the core ranking system will be updated and released during the larger broad core update. Google explained there will be more volatility than with regular broad core updates. So yep, buckle up. :) Google has refined how it understands "which pages are unhelpful, have a poor user experience, or feel like they were created for search engines versus people." This could include "sites created to match very specific search queries." And I have covered the UX and ads part of the HCU before with the Sep HCU(X). DO NOT IGNORE THAT. And regarding the HCU, just like Panda and Penguin of the past, the helpful content system is now part of Google's core ranking systems. That was faster than I thought it would be... but does make sense. So, no more helpful content updates. This will all be part of Google's core ranking algo now (and broad core updates). And beyond all of that, Google is also rolling out March 2024 spam updates with spam policy updates too. These will yield both algorithmic and manual actions. First, there's "scaled content abuse search spam", which is an update to the "spammy automatically-generated content" policy. It's been expanded to account for more sophisticated scaled content creation methods. So producing content at scale to boost search rankings via automation, or combo of human and automation (like using generative AI), is against Google's guidelines. Then there's "expired domain abuse spam" where expired domains are purchased, and then repurposed, "with the intention of boosting search rankings of low-quality content." I call this the Conch House spam update. :) And finally, there's "Parasite SEO", and Google is giving site owners two months advanced notice before they roll out an update targeting those tactics on May 5. So, a BIG heads-up if you are hosting lower-quality third-party content that can piggyback on the power of your domain. Google will start to take action in two months from both an algorithmic and manual actions perspective. You can read more about all of this in Barry Schwartz's post on Search Engine Land and in the blog post published by Google. #google #seo

In November 2024, Google intensified its efforts to combat "site reputation abuse," a practice where content is published on authoritative websites to dominate search rankings. This crackdown has notably impacted major publishers like Forbes Advisor, Time Stamp, Wall Street Journal Buyside, Fortune Recommends and others, that hosted such content on their platforms. Some of these websites have seen 20% - 40% dip in month over month keyword rankings. The ethical SEO community has complained about this practice for years, pejoratively calling it “Parasite SEO”While SEOs, whose morals are as loose as the spine of a limbo champion, have been taking this practice to the bank. 🤣 Just kidding, I know sometimes you just gotta pay the bills. Parasite SEO involves authoritative website publishing content that is not relevant to their core brand, to get paid. This is not to be confused with a Multiple Domain strategy where you are using another site (that is relevant to your topic) to rank for a term. Dr. Pete Meyers wrote a brilliant article on how to identify if your website is at risk of being effected. That’s a must read. Link in the comments. At brightonSEO I spoke about how we took advantage of a competitors drop in keyword rankings to fuel our content strategy. You can run the same play here. Here is how to capitalize on this update: 🥋 1. Enhance or Create Original Content: With major publishers losing rankings due to site reputation abuse, there's an opportunity for brands to fill the void by creating high-quality, original content that aligns with user intent. Or updating their current content to rank better for the target terms. Use Semrush to find the keywords that declined in ranking. Use A.I tools like RivalFlow AI or Surfer SEO to figure out what you need to do to capture the opportunity. 2. Leverage Niche Platforms: Collaborate with reputable niche websites that maintain strict editorial content guidelines. Dr.Pete’s study showed that websites like these probably did not get hit by this update. Partnering with these platforms can enhance your brand's visibility and generate sales. Niche sites will be the first to pick up rankings for the terms that are dropping.  3. Integrate Search: I know I harp on this but, leverage that Google Ads budget to try and get in front of these organic dips. Watch the full video for more. I hope this helps. I’m rooting for you. 👏 #seo #contentmarketing #searchengineoptimization #googleupdate #growth #contentstrategy #sitereputationabuse #googlemanualaction  ------------------------------ 🥋 I'm Lavall founder of Growth Skills I'm a second degree Black Belt, Bareknuckle Karate Champion and do Full Contact Growth Marketing for my clients. 💰 My posts will help you increase search rankings, brand awareness and revenue using Growth Marketing.  🎓 My posts will help you Learn How to Learn to grow your career and business. Liked this post? Want to see more? 🔔 Ring it on my Profile 🔝 Connect with me

I’ve been relatively quiet on here lately because, well, things are changing. Fast. The latest shift? A steep decline in search and direct traffic since Google’s June 30 Core Algorithm Update. We’ve spent the last year talking about how generative search and LLMs will chip away at website traffic, but until now, the impact felt theoretical. Not anymore. This latest update rolled out AI Overviews across most searches. And since then, traffic has been in free fall, for organic and the catch-all, direct. We’re seeing the biggest impact on large content publishers, but smaller sites aren’t immune. So, what does it mean? Honestly, a lot. We’re entering a kind of SEO-stagflation. For some sites, impressions will rise while clicks fall. For others, impressions stay flat, but clicks still decline. Your ranking drops, and even if you hold position, the value of a click is shrinking. The percentage of influence a website has in the sales process—especially during discovery—is declining. That doesn’t make websites irrelevant. But it does suggest a shift. Websites as conversion points, not education hubs. And asking, “What replaces websites?” misses the point. Instead, it's a rethinking of what's actually important in the marketing cycle. Reach will drop. Engagement metrics won’t tell the full story. Intent will be measured in views and impressions, not clicks. Frequency will become the gold standard. Positioning will outweigh tactics and placements because everyone will have tactics and placements. Community is no longer a buzzword. It’s becoming the new distribution strategy. Weird times ahead. Probably good for the consumer. Definitely tough for marketers explaining this to CEOs and shareholders over the next few quarters. Hold on. It’s going to be fun.

Google’s July 2025 Update: What’s Changing in Search Link In Bio. Google completed its June 2025 Core Update rollout on July 17, but the ranking shifts are still unfolding — and July brought additional refinements that many are seeing across their traffic and visibility metrics. Here’s what stands out: Core Focus Areas: • Better alignment with user intent • More weight on E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authority, trust) • Stricter penalties for manipulative link-building and keyword stuffing • Increased visibility for structured, well-organized content (especially for snippets and AI Overviews) • UX and mobile-first design now directly impacting rankings Under the hood: Google is applying newer systems like MUVERA and its Graph Foundation Model to improve how it understands relationships between content, context, and authority — not just keywords. What this means for site owners and marketers: • Sites with thin or outdated content saw drops • Sites focused on depth, clarity, and trustworthiness gained • UX, mobile performance, and semantic clarity are now critical 📌 If you saw volatility in early to mid-July, this is likely why. Now’s a good time to review your content, technical SEO, and user experience with fresh eyes. #SEO #GoogleUpdate #SearchEngineOptimization #ContentStrategy #EAT #July2025 #DigitalMarketing #SERP #TechnicalSEO #UX