We’ve been wondering how the majority of the websites affected by Google’s September 2023 helpful content upgrade are doing. Glenn Gabe is monitoring approximately 400 of them, and he reports that 88 (or 22%) have had a 20% increase since the August 2024 core update. Some achieved complete recoveries, while the majority did not or saw no improvement in ranking at all.
Glenn wrote the following on X:
He shared some of these charts:
He posted more about this on X:
As a reminder, Google has stated that a new update would be released soon, although it may not include HCU recoveries.
We detected some early signs of life on several of the sites affected by the September 2023 helpful content. Some reported reversals, however this could have been due to a search ranking fault that was corrected a few days later. There are additional specifics regarding those surges here, but we are now months later, and only around 20% of those had a 20% increase since then, while the majority did not.
We appreciate that 400 sites is only a sample of all the sites affected by the helpful content upgrade, but it is the largest data set I am aware of that is being followed by someone who is well familiar with these modifications.
Will these sites ever recover? Will the Google Web Creator event make a difference in the long run?