The HCU and other Google updates: Why was I hit?

In September 2023, the Google Helpful Content Update (HCU) turned the blogging world on its head, leaving many creators frustrated and disillusioned. It was supposed to prioritize content that genuinely benefits users while demoting junk or fluff focused only on SEO. That was the idea, anyway.

Travel bloggers were left trying to guess what happened to them. Some think they got off easy because they had low ad density or few affiliate links. Others feel their blogs were penalized for SEO practices or because Google seems to favor big brands over small sites.

So should we just throw up our hands and curse the randomness of fate? We asked travel blogger Kate Caf, and she said no!

About my site

My blog KatieCafTravel.com grew from 5k readers per month to over 100k In the course of one year… until it was slapped down by Google. My traffic initially fell 50% during the September 2023 HCU. I thought that was a heavy blow, but since then it’s only fallen more.

At this point, my site has almost completely disappeared from Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), dropping from 3.5k Google sessions per day before the HCU to only 100 sessions now.

The 2023 HCU

The Helpful Content Update is a punitive qualifier applied to sites that was first rolled out in 2022. Its second iteration in September 2023 caused massive damage in the travel blogging community. In response to negative backlash, Google gave vague advice to publishers (just “create more helpful content”!) and said they wouldn’t be rolling back the update.

The lack of clear guidance for site owners on how to move forward has given way to a myriad of theories and superstitions surrounding what caused a site to get penalized. Here are some of the strongest HCU theories.

What could the HCU have been targeting?

• Poor user experience: This means that you were penalized if your site had a high bounce rate, or “Pogosticking” rate (when a reader returns to search results because your site failed to answer their query). This article and this video by On-Page.ai delve further into this theory. Pop-ups, poor formatting, thin content, wordy or unengaging writing, an overpopulation of ads, or click-bait spammy practices all could have contributed to a site accumulating poor user signals.
• Switch to mobile-first UX: In October 2023, Google switched to prioritizing the mobile version of sites for indexing over desktop. Many indie site owners aren’t aware that most blogs are just scrolls of text and ads in mobile view. This may have affected their ranking in a new mobile-first algorithm.
• Use of SEO and keyword research: From the beginning of the updates, Google made it clear that the HCU was meant to penalize content not “written for humans,” adding that they don’t want “content made primarily to gain search engine rankings.” However, Google’s advice is vague, and sites that specifically target only long-tail keywords are still ranking high.
• Pattern recognition: Some SEO analysts told me that from a machine learning standpoint, most travel blogs look the same. We all have the same WordPress themes, formatting, and topics, such as “10 Best Things to Do in X.” And if your site looks too much like others that are creating spam, you might also be marked as spam.

I asked Google Search liaison Danny Sullivan on X about the pattern recognition theory, and here’s his reply: 

“It’s the algorithm. It’s not focusing on a specific site. It doesn’t have a list of sites added to it. It’s automatically understanding patterns that make it think, ‘Across all this content, I see these patterns, and this makes me think generally I see spam here.’”

• Listicles: Travel websites that publish mainly listicle-style articles were hit hard by the HCU, perhaps because they’re so similar and look like spam.
• Branded search traffic: Google has said repeatedly that backlinks are “not the most important ranking factor.” Many believe that post-HCU branded search traffic is a way to gauge a site’s authority, as opposed to backlinks, which can be fabricated more easily. However, sites like Thrillist which have thousands of branded searches every month were also affected negatively by the updates.

What the HCU likely wasn’t about

• Ads: While ads might make a site look messy and lead to an overall poorer user experience and subsequent HCU hit, I have seen sites with no ads at all that were also severely impacted.
• Affiliate links: There are many sites with loads of affiliate links that were unaffected by the updates.
• Having a shopping/e-commerce element: There’s an online rumor that selling products on your site will protect you from the HCU. But there are lots of travel blogs that sell ebooks, photo presets, trip-planning services, and coaching programs that were hit by the updates just the same.
• Custom site design/branding: Poor site design could lead to bad user metrics and an HCU algorithmic penalty. However, I’ve seen some professionally designed sites that were negatively affected.
• Not using Google AdSense: There’s an online rumor that sites using AdSense were favored over sites running ad networks like Mediavine and Raptive. However, this video from Doug Cunnington showcases some websites that were featured as AdSense success stories but later algorithmically penalized.
• Displaying E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are the principles underlying Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines. E-E-A-T can be displayed by writing in the first person, having photos of yourself, linking social media profiles, etc. These are useful guidelines for websites, but many personal blogs by real people have been affected by the updates. Plus, Google Search’s liaison Danny Sullivan said E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor.
• Having a high DR/DA (Domain Rating/Domain Authority): High-authority sites like Culture Trip (down 70%), PlanetWare (down 90%), and The Crazy Tourist (down almost 100%) were negatively impacted no less than small ones.
• Writing about one topic: Many niche travel blogs that only write about one location were hit just as hard in the updates as global travel sites without a specific focus.
• Getting all of your traffic from Google: I’ve talked to site owners who still get 100k clicks per month from Facebook, Pinterest, and email marketing even though their site was completely removed from Google SERPs. That shows how diversifying traffic sources to your site is a good practice in the current climate.

Six other Google algorithm updates

Click the arrow to read about other important Google updates.

1. 2023 Fall Reviews Update

The Google Reviews Update, originally called the Product Reviews Update, targets sites recommending lots of products, sales, or services with the intention of pushing the reader toward their affiliate links.

Google’s documentation says that product reviews are fine, as long as they’re not “thin” affiliate pages: “Thin affiliate pages are pages with product affiliate links on which the product descriptions and reviews are copied directly from the original merchant without any original content or added value.”

2. 2023 Hidden Gems Update

If you’ve googled a competitive keyword recently and have seen a low-DA blog ranking high, usually from a hobbyist instead of a professional (monetized) website, this could be due to Google’s Hidden Gems algorithm update.

For example, here’s a low-DA site ranking high for the competitive keyword “things to do in Cairo.” You’ll see these for many “things to do in X” queries. Articles that aren’t even directly related to the query sometimes rank in the top three.

Danny Sullivan said: “Helpful information can often live in unexpected or hard-to-find places… a post on a little-known blog, or an article with unique expertise on a topic.”

Very altruistic of Google to want to showcase smaller websites. However, the Hidden Gems Update has made keyword research difficult due to low-DA sites ranking for high-volume search terms. It falsely appears that these keywords have little competition. In addition, it renders keyword research tools useless.

3. 2024 March Spam Update

The March 2024 Spam Update overlapped with the Spring 2024 Core Update, which now has HCU and Reviews qualifiers baked in. All this to say that from March 2024 forward, it becomes difficult to parse which updates you could have been affected by since so many were running concurrently. The Spam Update says in very clear language that it was meant to penalize sites for spamming.

One of the most dramatic moments in this Google Update saga was when Google had a team of quality raters manually de-index sites that were considered “pure spam.” Google’s search liaison himself, John Mueller, had his site marked as “pure spam” and de-indexed, calling into question the accuracy of those quality raters.

It was clear that Google was now waging a war against SEO analysts looking to manipulate search results for profit. But it’s unclear what they would be doing about all of the genuine content creators caught in the crossfire.

4. 2024 Spring Core Update

Many of those affected by the September 2023 HCU update also fell hard during the Spring 2024 Core Update. The reason for this could be that the HCU and Reviews updates are baked into ongoing core updates. If you have your traffic affected by a core algorithm update, it could be due to the same factors.

Google will no longer be announcing when it runs the Reviews or HCU qualifier in the future, so there’s no way of pinpointing if it was these specific qualifiers that impacted your traffic.

5. May 2024 Site Reputation Abuse Update

May 5, 2024, was the start of Google’s Site Reputation Abuse Update, which targeted big brand sites that were abusing their authority by hosting third-party content for pay. This is also what’s called “Parasite SEO.” Not many independent content creators were affected by this update, as it mainly targeted sites with high authority.

6. Other algorithm changes: UGC content promoted and AI SGE

Even if a site wasn’t hit by one of the punitive algorithmic qualifiers mentioned in this article, most independent travel sites will likely still have seen a decrease in traffic. This is because there has been re-prioritizing in the algorithm overall. Most notably, Reddit and other forums are ranking above indie blogs across the board for all queries.

Google has also implemented more widgets and snippet features than ever before in the SERPs, and it’s unrolling a new generative AI search function, SGE. All of these new features Google is implementing will push organic article results further down the page. Thus, even if a site does not lose rankings, it could still be losing substantial traffic.

Changes in search results

The more I study SERPs, the more random the results following the recent Google updates seem. Some big-name travel blogs with large social followings, high Domain Authority (DA), and unique content have practically gone to zero, while sites that are thinly veiled affiliate spam continue to rank. It’s demotivating, to say the least.

Google Search liaison John Mueller has repeatedly said that sites can recover from the Helpful Content Update and even grow. But it’s hard to have faith when I’ve heard about a total of zero recoveries over the past year.

However, I have noticed a hopeful trend: sites with a strong community around their content are faring better. Blogs that have been driving traffic from social media to their websites have been growing. An example is CJ Eats, which was highlighted as a major update success by Authority Hacker.

It’s not clear if Google specifically looks for this, or if an engaged audience generates positive signals for the search algorithm, but it works.

My theory about the HCU

Sites that were growing with SEO and fabricated backlinks, either built or bought, might have been overserved to readers. 

I know my site was. Once I wrote an article called “Is Egypt Safe for Women to Visit?” that ranked #1 for “Is Egypt safe.” That query probably should have gone to a government site, not a personal blog, but it brought me thousands of readers per month.

The combination of being overserved by the algorithm and content padding for ads, coupled with a Navboost system that tracks and evaluates user metrics, could have been the kiss of death for many sites during the Google HCU.

Pre-HCU, my wordier articles ranked better without much editing. I’m not saying what’s ranking now is better, by any means. But SERPs are now filled with different types of sites. Forums like Reddit, e-commerce sites, unevaluated blogs, and businesses like tourism boards are prioritized in the current algorithm.

Sidenote: Can we trust statements from Google?

Recently, a whistleblower who worked for Google leaked documents related to the way Google’s algorithm operates. There’s a heavy emphasis on a ranking system titled “Navboost,” which some SEO analysts believe was the basis for the HCU. It aggregates data from Chrome search engine users from the previous 13 months; tallying positive “Long Clicks” (long reader retention) from “Short Clicks” (bouncing and pogo-sticking). Sites with the longest click will be granted higher visibility in SERPs.

This is meaningful because Google’s search liaison had previously said explicitly that Google doesn’t use Chrome data for rankings. Many SEO analysts and site owners feel lied to by Google and are questioning what else the massive corporation may be hiding.

📌 Editor’s Note: Travelpayouts’ SEO expert Anton Ivlichev analyzed the leaked data and shared tips for travel bloggers concerning their SEO and blogging strategies.

Analyzing the impact of the HCU

Here are some key metrics to focus on to understand the update’s impact and plan your recovery strategy.

• Traffic: Monitor your overall site performance, particularly organic search traffic. Look for significant drops or changes in patterns. Compare current levels to historical data to identify trends since the update.
• Engagement: Assess user metrics such as sessions, rate, and average engagement time per session. This will help you understand how users are interacting with your content after the update.
• Performance: Evaluate speed, load times, and overall site responsiveness. Poor metrics in these areas can negatively impact user experience and contribute to lower rankings.
• Conversion rates: Analyze email sign-ups, product purchases, and other key actions. A drop in conversions could be a sign that your content is no longer resonating with your audience or that visitors aren’t finding what they need.

How to optimize content for the HCU

To navigate this new normal, it’s essential to reassess your content strategy, focus on building genuine user engagement, and diversify your traffic sources. Here are key tips from this article to help you recover from Google updates.

How to create helpful content

• Redo site formatting to be more engaging on mobile. I put my mobile phone next to my laptop with ads and pop-up blockers turned off to understand how readers see my site. I also send articles to friends for user testing on their phones. 
• De-program SEO and write about topics – forget keywords. I’m trying to satisfy a user’s journey rather than just aim to rank for a keyword. No more “How to get to X” or “Is it cold in X?” to artificially rank a page.
• Stop doing things “to show Google.” Having a lengthy author bio at the beginning of articles, or a poorly made YouTube video, likely won’t help to boost your authority score with Google. But it will make for a worse user experience.
• Title content accurately. Articles that are personal stories should be titled “My Experience Taking an ATV Tour in Bali,” not “ATV Tours in Bali: Travel Guide.” It’s likely many readers who clicked off the SERPs into the latter title were thinking they would be directed to a tour company site.
• If you do product reviews, consider creating video reviews on YouTube in addition to or instead of blog articles. These videos won’t increase your website’s rankings, but video content is being given more visibility in searches.
• Branch out into more than one platform, even if your site hasn’t been hit. Algorithms are changing frequently and many quality content creators are caught in the crossfire.
• Be extremely wary of people selling courses or HCU recovery services. There have been no documented HCU recoveries.
• Succinct and engaging content over long-form “skyscraper” articles. Google has come out and said that word count is not a ranking factor. According to On-Page, there’s a 10% reduction in overall word counts on the first pages of SERPs post-March 2024. This means that shorter articles are ranking better than they used to. Focus on being succinct and engaging.
• Don’t be formulaic. Does a 1,500-word article on visiting a waterfall really need a table of contents, a conclusion, and a hotel affiliate callout panel if the article isn’t about hotels? Focus on making content that’s more engaging and informative for readers over doing what you see others doing.

• If your site was hit, make an X account and speak up about it! I’ve been in contact with both Google search liaisons by tagging them (@johnMu @searchliaison) and sharing my site. It’s our job to let Google know if we think they’ve done wrong by independent site owners.
• If you’ve just started growing your site with SEO, be wary of future algorithmic penalties, whether six months or two years down the road. I’ve talked to many owners of sites that started in 2023, experienced uninhibited SEO growth, and then were suddenly clapped down by the Core Update. 

What to do with unhelpful content

• Update or revise: Refresh outdated content with new information, statistics, or multimedia elements to make it more engaging and valuable for the user.
• Replace with better sources: Swap out old or less reliable references with authoritative ones to improve content credibility and align with search engines’ quality standards.
• Merge similar articles: Combine overlapping pieces of content to create a more comprehensive resource, preventing keyword cannibalization and enhancing the user experience.
• Focus on the search intent: Provide clear, relevant answers that satisfy the user’s needs.
• Remove thin content: Eliminate or redirect short, low-value pages to more comprehensive content to improve the overall quality and effectiveness of your site.