I cover the old HCU(X) cLasifier, site-level quality algorithms, counterbalancing systems and how the transition was as smooth as a bed of razor blades…
This is the first post in a series about Comprehensive March 2024 core update. The update was one of the largest and most complex core updates Google has ever released. The launch took 45 days, several core systems were updated that reinforce each other, and much more. Many sites experienced a lot of volatility and movement during the update, with some sites changing course during the rollout of the update. There is no way to cover everything about this update in a single post, so I’m choosing to write multiple posts instead.
This post covers the transition from Google’s helpful content system to the core ranking system. There is one tonne There is confusion about how this works, how it affects sites overall, how it affects sites previously affected by the HCU(X) in September, and more. I hope this can clear some things up for site owners and SEOs, while also letting Google know more about what I’m seeing on many sites I follow that were heavily impacted by the HCU(X) in September. It’s not pretty.
The old HCU classifier, the transition from the helpful content system to the core and the counterbalance of the systems:
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the old HCU classifier, page level impact vs site level, website impact, etc. This is really important to understand, and I’m not sure Google has done a great job of explaining how it works. I’ll start with how it’s supposed to work, then describe what I see based on tracking many sites over time (particularly since the helpful content update rolled out in September).
With the switch to Core, the old HCU classifier as we knew it will disappear. This old HCU classifier was applied when Google’s helpful content system determined that a site had a significant amount of “unhelpful content” based on a site-level score (so Google would understand all of a site’s content and know how much was “not helpful”). .
If the negative classifier were applied, a website would often do this Lot in rankings. With the September HCU(X) the losses were not small… I have shared many screenshots over time and here are just two from GSC. They are definitely creepy.
Well, with the March 2024 core update, the helpful content system has been integrated into Google’s core ranking system and the old classifier should be decommissioned. Instead, multiple systems Google’s central ranking systems would now evaluate the usefulness of content. Many people were confused here. Since the helpful content system is now part of the core, it’s not some kind of separate hit for rankings. Rather, it is part of the overall calculation between systems which are part of Google’s central ranking system.
You can imagine it like this. Any system that is part of Google’s core ranking system (represented by a small factory below) can create a rating based on the task it is intended to rate/judge. Each system could support or reinforce a particular score from another factory OR the systems could be at odds and Counterweight each other. So imagine a website that has some positive things and gets positive reviews from certain core systems. But perhaps the systems whose job it is to evaluate the usefulness of content end up rating the site poorly. In this situation, the different systems would balance each other out and the final rating may not be optimal for that location.
My main point (pun intended) is that site owners cannot view the helpful content system as some sort of separate system. And the various systems that are part of Google’s core ranking system may or may not agree. And if not, a system can counterbalance other systems. In other words, the systems are not work in isolation. They are part of a larger system that uses the results of all systems in Google’s central ranking system.
The Importance of Site-Level Quality Algorithms:
I’ve written about the power of Google’s site-level quality algorithms many times over the years. They are one of the main reasons a website can spike or crash like crazy during a major core update. It’s not like every URL on a website suddenly becomes high or low quality. It is the site-level customization during a major core update that impacts rankings on a site.
And now that the helpful content system is built into the core, “content helpfulness” now contributes to these site-level quality algorithms. And based on how these systems and ratings worked when the March 2024 core update rolled out, they appear to be heavily influencing Google’s site-level quality algorithms. And I mean really strong.
For example, most of the sites I follow that were heavily impacted by September’s HCU(X) saw sharp drops with the March core update. And that’s after a drop of more than 80% based on September’s helpful content update. I recently shared a screenshot of a website that has dropped a whopping 97% since September 18, 2023. This is crazy to see. And in my opinion this site doesn’t deserve that. Maybe I’ll write another post about it soon.
Google has stated numerous times that it evaluates websites overall with comprehensive core updates. For the latest information, see the recently updated help documentation Debugging search traffic drops. They say you should do this if you see a sharp drop in position on a variety of terms Rate yours Site as a whole (And NOT only individual pages). I’ve ALWAYS said this in blog posts and presentations that cover major core updates. Don’t miss the forest for the trees. Improve your entire website over time.
How the HCU transition was supposed to happen and how it went:
Every morning during the March core update, I checked the visibility numbers for 380 sites that were heavily impacted by September’s HCU(X). I was hoping to see some movement on these sites as Google’s core systems took over judging the usefulness of content. And no, I didn’t think everyone would recover… Some definitely shouldn’t recover. But I thought there would be some recovery for certain sites that worked on improvements, and maybe some would take an even bigger hit if they didn’t. I didn’t expect to see what actually happened…
Every morning all I saw on these pages were more drops. This was crazy to analyze and I feel terrible for site owners who have been heavily impacted by September’s HCU(X). I truly believed that at some point during the update the old classifier would fall and Google’s systems for evaluating content usefulness would take over. No. Each morning showed a greater decline for these sites and I communicated this each day via my “Good Morning Google Land!” Threads on Twitter. I’m not saying that the old classifier is definitely still in use, but not a single site showed any kind of recovery at all.
You can see an example of the ongoing decline in my tweet below. Here too, many of these locations were already destroyed by the HCU(X) in September and now even more have fallen.
Summary and why you should provide feedback:
I hope this post helped you understand more about the transition of Google’s helpful content system to the core ranking system, the importance of site-level quality algorithms (especially with major core updates), and how the transition hasn’t brought with it that many changes. Thought it would.
Google is now actively collecting feedback on the March 2024 Core Update. Site owners can provide sample queries and landing page combinations based on sites that were incorrectly deleted (or continued to be deleted) with the update. And I know that many sites impacted by September’s HCU(X) are also providing feedback. If you feel like you’ve been heavily impacted by September’s HCU(X) and have been working to improve, but you don’t see any movement in the right direction, then you should definitely provide feedback.
Google can refine its systems to fix problems and has done so in the past based on feedback. For example, I wrote a post in 2018 when ecommerce category pages were accidentally sucked into video carousels. One client lost between $600,000 and $800,000 in 6 to 8 weeks during this period. I wrote a case study about this that got on Google’s radar. Danny Sullivan presented this case to the teams working on video carousels and the issue was actually resolved about three to four weeks later. I’m not saying the HCU issues will definitely be fixed… but the more examples site owners and SEO can provide Google, the more Google teams can make the necessary adjustments.
Here is the part of my post when the fix was rolled out by Google. You can see clicks coming back when the category pages were in the 10 blue links compared to the video carousel. It was great to see this introduced…
As for the March core update form, I’m sure there’s a lot of debate going on right now. And I hope that the teams involved at Google review as many examples as possible and then introduce changes to correct some of the HCU madness. Again, not all sites should recover. But some will definitely see a recovery… Time will tell whether Google makes major changes to its systems for evaluating content usefulness. I’ll be monitoring this closely and will let you know if I see any significant changes. Stay tuned.
GG