Google introduced this November 2023 review update on November 8, 2023 and announced that it will move to a more continuous rollout (so the November update will likely be the last review update announced). Unless significant changes are made to the system (e.g. expansion to additional languages or other major changes). As a quick update: The update was released in April 2021 and at that time only product reviews were evaluated. That’s why it was originally called the Product Reviews Update (PRU). With the rating update from April 2023, the rating began any contentProviding recommendations, reviews, analysis, etc.
The various reviews updates have caused significant volatility on many websites that offer product reviews, especially affiliate sites that want to make money from these reviews. And with the move in April 2023, the update will now impact any website “with the purpose of making a recommendation, providing an opinion, or providing analysis.” Additionally, reviews can be done on any topic and in any industry. The system has therefore been greatly expanded.
Many companies have reached out to me after seeing significant declines when the reviews updates were rolled out. Additionally, and I’ve documented this many times in posts and presentations about the rating system, some sites experienced insane volatility over time, with their scores frequently rising and falling (even outside of official rating updates). For example, here are two examples of this in action:
Imagine owning a website with trends like this… Good luck planning.
And with the November 2023 ratings update, Google announced that the rating system is now being “regularly and continually improved.” Therefore, Google will not post about future updates (unless there is a significant change that you want site owners to know about). For example, if the system is expanded to include additional languages.
(Future) Impact based on the rating system: The importance of “continuous improvement”.
As for the move to continuous execution, Google’s John Mueller explained in a Search Central Hangout video back in April 2021 that this could happen. I made sure to report on it at the time. Here is the video of John explaining this:
By the way, this is similar to when Panda was integrated into Google’s central ranking system in 2016 and never heard of again. And I feel like the rating system could be the same way. For example, if your site is affected by the evolution of the rating system, and this does not happen during a specific rating update, how can you know for sure that the rating system has affected your site? Well, you won’t, just like when Panda switched to Google’s core ranking algorithm.
Here’s a slide from one of my SMX presentations where I explained that the rating update will likely be integrated into Google’s core ranking algorithm at some point:
November 2023 Reviews Update: Review of review pages (in terms of visibility).
With the release of the November 2023 ratings update, I wanted to review the performance of sites that were severely impacted by any of the previous ratings updates. So I ended up checking the visibility trends for about seven hundred websites that had previously been affected by product rating updates or review updates. I checked their search visibility before the first review update in April 2021 and then checked their visibility as of November 25, 2023.
I quickly saw a trend and it wasn’t pretty.
Many of the sites were destroyed and have not recovered at all. Previously, sites barely ranked for many competing searches or were effectively shut down. It’s incredible to see the impact such an algorithm update can have over time. And to be clear, I’m not saying these were all great sites…they weren’t. But a look into the past allowed me to see how Google was able to develop a system to address a specific problem (thin and low-quality reviews), and how that system could bog down many review-focused sites.
Here’s a quick snapshot of what I saw when I ran the visibility numbers for seven hundred websites:
Please note that Google designed the rating system to display the highest quality review content. So it was developed for all the right reasons, but the effect is breathtaking. And I’ll soon explain why this should be alarming for sites affected by Google’s helpful content update (particularly the HCU in September).
Here are some examples so you can see the huge impact many of these sites have experienced. Note that some of the websites are also affected by multiple types of updates. Yes, the reviews update has had a big impact on the sites, but so have major core updates, spam updates, and helpful content updates.
And I can go on…it was wild to see the massive declines over time with little to no recovery. Unfortunately, many of the sites are currently in a very serious condition. And that got me thinking about September’s helpful content update (HCUX), which I’ll cover next.
What this means for sites affected by Google’s helpful content update, particularly the September 2023 HCU(X):
Back to the helpful September content update, HCU(X) for short, which was a huge update. Many websites were affected by the update, experiencing a drop of more than 70% overnight. Many of the declines were extreme, reminding me of some of the declines I’ve seen on sites affected by ratings updates over time. And after reviewing many sites that were affected in September 2023, I believe many of them still have a lot of work to do to improve, and possibly recover.
For example, if a website is heavily affected by HCU(X), Google will algorithmically classify it as “unhelpful.” Website owners will need to improve significantly over time for this classifier to be phased out. Google has explained that it can take months of doing the right things to clear the classifier and restore a website. In other words, the percentage of “unhelpful content” must decrease significantly over time for the classifier to be cleared (and that could lead to recovery).
So yes, Websites can recover from an HCU hit, but also review sites… And many didn’t. At all.
The HCU now runs continuously, so sites technically don’t have to wait for another official update for helpful content to restore. However, the reality is that the restores I saw occurred during official helpful content updates (when the classifier was improved or other major changes were implemented). I wonder if this will change over time as more sites experience recovery outside of these specific updates… Time will tell.
Regardless, the most important point is that sites that were heavily impacted by HCU(X) in September should work hard to sort this out Get out of the gray area of Google’s algorithms… and drop the classifier. If not, these websites will remain at the (low) visibility level they currently have. And for many, this is not a viable situation from a business perspective. Just look at the trends I shared previously on the review sites that never recovered.
A reminder of the gray area of Google algorithms: an insane place to live for website owners.
For website owners affected by HCU, it is important to CLEARLY move out of the gray area. If not, you may never recover. And worse, you may never know how close you are to recovery. I’ve covered this concept many times over the years, especially when medieval pandas roamed the internet. I’ve helped many companies impacted by Panda and those that recovered fastest and with the biggest gains, usually tackling big problems in big ways. They haven’t identified any changes or made only moderate improvements. They decided to improve significantly over time.
You can read my post about the HCU(X) in September for more information on the issues I’ve seen on various content sites And UX point of view. If you were severely impacted by September’s helpful content update, I strongly encourage you to fully address these issues. Implementation of minor changes is likely to be the case not Help your situation (similar to review sites that were badly affected by the review update and didn’t fully resolve their issues). As mentioned, this didn’t end well for many of these sites.
It’s also important to remember that machine learning is used in important algorithm updates such as major core updates, the reviews update, and the helpful content update. This means that many signals are sent to a machine learning system, which dictates the weight of these signals and ultimately the ranking. It is not a simple “if-then” statement. So make sure your website is able to get out of the gray area so that the HCU classifier can be discarded.
If you can improve significantly, your website can recover. But if you don’t do enough to pass Google’s algorithmic assessment, you could be left severely in the red (without knowing how close you are to recovery). This is also an insane place for website owners to live.
Good luck.
GG