In May 2023, Google wrote a blog post explaining that it planned to update its systems Surface “hidden treasures”or content written from a “personal or professional perspective.” We were eagerly awaiting this update when the “case of crazy updates” hit, including three core updates, a major helpful content update, a spam update, and a reviews update. Needless to say, it was a crazy time.
Although Google had not confirmed the Hidden Gems update, explosive growth was observed on certain forums. And nothing stood out more than Reddit and Quora. Here, for example, was their growth in fall 2023.
And it wasn’t long before we heard from Google that this was ultimately the case Start the Hidden Gems update.but just never announced it. Yes, welcome to Google Land. 🙂 🙂
So we learned that the update was an afterthought, but again, sites using UGC were seeing explosive growth – so it all made sense. When we finally learned about the launch of the Hidden Gems update, Google told Barry Schwartz that it was rolling out as part of the Fall 2023 core updates, but didn’t explain which one. But if I had to guess, I’d say it was probably part of the October core update. This is the time many The forums began to swarm like crazy. And that is the point of my post. It wasn’t just Reddit and Quora. Many forums have actually benefited greatly from the Hidden Gems update.
Reddit and Quora are growing like crazy and the extreme focus on Reddit:
As I mentioned above, both Reddit and Quora saw explosive growth with the Hidden Gems update. Reddit is up 378% and Quora is up 332% since then (based on SEMrush data). And they’re up 978% and 459%, respectively, according to Sistrix data. Yes, these numbers are accurate and underscore how an algorithmic change like the Hidden Gems update can impact certain types of websites and shake up a SERP.
Much has been said about Reddit’s growth in particular, and for good reason. After Reddit gained notoriety, Google announced a partnership with Reddit and will pay up to $60 million per year to use Reddit data to train its AI models. As part of the agreement, Google also gets access to Reddit data (a feed of content rather than the need for crawling). By the way, this is a similar setup to Google with Twitter. So, this data can be used to train Google’s AI and help Google quickly access all of Reddit’s content.
When you combine the incredible increase in search visibility with the partnership, it has led many to believe that the explosion in visibility is due to the partnership. Read more about the partnership via Search Engine Land. And you can Read more about Reddit’s rise in visibility in a post by Silvia Gituto and Lily Ray on the Amsive blog. They cover the categories that have surged, subreddits and more.
Regarding Reddit’s special treatment, Google’s Danny Sullivan has repeatedly stated that this is not the case and that other forums have also benefited from the update. And he’s not wrong about other forums booming. I’ve been tweeting examples of this since the fall of 2023, which shows that a number of forums have surged since then. I follow about 100 forums across all industries and many have grown significantly since fall 2023. Lily Ray has also been tracking the growth of forums since Fall 2023 and has shared some of her insights on X.
Of course, since many of these forums are niche, they will NOT see this absolute visibility growth that Reddit or Quora have seen. But percentagethey rose absolutely (and some even sharply). I’ll cover the numbers below.
Tracking forum visibility increases based on the Hidden Gems update:
Due to the increase in forums starting Fall 2023, I wanted to quickly provide some data showing the visibility changes on these sites. So I ran the visibility numbers for 100 forums and compared these sites year-over-year (August 2024 vs August 2023). You can see a massive increase on some websites over and beyond only Reddit and Quora. And percentage-wise, there are some big increases outside of Reddit and Quora.
First, 88% of the 97 forums I analyzed saw an increase of over 100% year-over-year. And many saw increases of 500% or more. And then there were some with increases of over 1000%. Note that some forums were at the domain level, while others were subdomains or directories.
And just to show you the crazy visibility trends for some, I’ve provided screenshots from ahrefs below. Looking through the trends across domains, subdomains, and folders, many began seeing a spike with the October 2023 core update and then continued into the fall. Then several ramped up in November, with either the November 2023 Core Update or the November 2023 Reviews Update. Both rolled out at the same time.
Also, it’s interesting to see that some of the sites I follow are down a bit due to the volatility we’re experiencing this summer. Overall, they are still up sharply, but some have seen declines recently. You will see this in some of the screenshots below. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come for these forums with the next core update. It’s possible that Google will correct some of these increases… Time will tell.
Summary: Forums are booming and beyond that only Reddit and Quora.
As you can see, the “Hidden Gems” update that Google released in fall 2023 to surface content written from a “personal perspective” has caused many forums to increase in visibility has. Sure, Reddit and Quora grew like crazy, but they weren’t the only ones experiencing explosive growth. The next core update is just around the corner and time will tell if we see changes that impact some of these forums (and perhaps accommodate some of the growth there). I’ll definitely cover what I see on Xhere on my blog and via my podcast ‘SEO from the front‘. Until then, keep an eye on the forums in the SERPs. Stay tuned.
GG