I've been wondering how the majority of sites hit by Google's September 2023 helpful content update are doing. Glenn Gabe is tracking about 400 of them, so he provided an update saying 88 (or 22% of them) have seen a 20% increase since the August 2024 core update. Some had full recoveries but most did not, and most saw no lifts at all.
Glenn wrote on X, "As of this morning, 88 have increased 20% or more since the ugust 2024 core update rolled out (about 22% of the sites in the list)." "Many show a surge and then a drop back down after... Some show more of an increase recently, and a few have shown full recoveries. Note, full recovery is an anomaly here... most surges were relative... and those sites didn't get back to where they were (not even close)," he added.
He shared some of these charts:
He posted more about this on X:
And here are more examples of what I'm seeing with the HCUX sites surging in August (but some dropping back down a bit). Good to see them surge, but weird how some have dropped during the post-August core update volatility. pic.twitter.com/nqVdKwQv6K
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) November 5, 2024
As a reminder, Google told us a new update is coming fairly soon but we might not see HCU recoveries with it.
We saw some early signs of some sites hit by the September 2023 helpful content see some signs of life. Then some saw reversals of sorts, but maybe that was the search ranking bug that got fixed a few days later. There are more details about those surges here but ultimately, we are now months after this and only 20% or so saw a 20% lift since then, and most did not.
I know 400 sites is just a sampling of all the sites impacted by the helpful content update, but it is the largest data set I know of that is being tracked by someone who really understands these updates.
Will these sites ever recover? Will that Google web creator event make any difference in the long run?
If you want to catch up on this helpful content update stuff, reading through the headlines might drive you mad.
Forum discussion at X.
Update: An update from Glenn Gabe on X:
The other day I shared how many HCU(X) sites surged 20% or more with the August core update (based on the 400 sites I'm tracking that were heavily impacted by the Sep 2023 HCU(X). It ends up that 22% of the 400 sites I'm tracking surged 20% or more. Based on sharing that info, I've been asked how many dropped *even more* since the August core update? Remember, these are sites that tanked with the September 2023 HCU(X), and then dropped even more with the March 2024 core update. And then Google collected feedback and some HCU(X) sites started rising from the ashes with the August 2024 core update. But again, that was just 22% of sites increasing 20% or more based on my list of 400.So how many dropped more? 51 sites in my list of 400 dropped even more with the August core update (or 13%). These were sites already heavily down based on the Sep HCU(X) and the March 2024 core update. Here are two examples of impact based on the August core update, and then what trending looks like since Sep 2023. Not good. Not good at all.
