Google held that Web Creator summit yesterday at the GooglePlex, where Google told victims of previous search ranking updates including the September 2023 helpful content update, that a new Google search ranking update is coming fairly or very soon, but if they were hit by the helpful content update, they should not expect to recover and they likely should move on to new things.
I was not at the event but I saw some posts from site owners who were at the event, these are the same site owners that saw their sites drop significantly due to the September 2023 helpful content update or previous core updates. They were invited to Google to speak directly to the Google Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, and various Google search engineers, including Pandu Nayak, a VP at Google Search.
Morgan at Charleston Crafted, who was one of those creators, posted on X, saying that Google said, “If you were hit by HCU, do not expect a recovery anytime soon.” She added that “they told us repeatedly an update is coming “very soon” and to not expect recovery.” Plus, she added clarity that any feedback from this event won’t be in that update. She wrote, “If the feedback from this event is taken into consideration, it will not be this update OR the next one, MAYBE the next one.”
Morgan went on to write, “If you were hit by HCU & depend on google, MOVE ON. They made it clear SOME of us MAY recover ONE DAY but all would not and who knows when it might be. Build a product. Get new traffic sources. Get a job.”
Here are those posts:
If you were hit by HCU & depend on google, MOVE ON.
They made it clear SOME of us MAY recover ONE DAY but all would not and who knows when it might be.
Build a product.
Get new traffic sources.
Get a job.
Google don’t currrr (once again, Danny is nice. Nice don’t pay my bills) pic.twitter.com/ZI2Ormk2BQ— Morgan (@CharlestonCraft) October 30, 2024
Mike Hardaker, the founder of Mountain Weekly News, wrote up a more detailed recap of what went down at this event. He wrote, I Drank the Kool-Aid at the 2024 Google Web Creator Summit and documented the event in much more detail. Here are some quotes that stood out related to this:
He quoted Pandu Nayak saying:
I have to say I am very very sorry for you, this is not great at all. I can’t also give you any guarantees about recovery or not, I think that would not be responsible for me to say this. Because I can’t tell what is going to happen. It’s just the unfortunate state of how we operate here. We are here listening to you, I think the whole reason we are having this conference at all is for us to hear you out, to get our teams to hear you out.
Our goal is to surface great content for users. I suspect there is a lot of great content you guys are creating that we are not surfacing to our users, but I can’t give you any guarantees unfortunately. We are focused on things for our users, that is not going to change.
I have to say that it is exactly the kind of things that drives us forward, I don’t see this as a waste, I can see if you don’t recover in a certain amount of time I can see you thinking of this as a waste but we find this incredibly valuable to guide the work that we do.
Just one other comment I would like to make is that we do want to say we have a vested interested in having a great web ecosystem. We are very closely tied to the web ecosystem. I think users benefit hugely from a vibrant ecosystem. Now that doesn’t answer your question if you will recover or anyone else in the room will recover. But we think having a vibrant web ecosystem is important, and that drives a lot of our work.
He quoted Danny Sullivan as saying:
In August some of the sites saw recovery, but some people are saying I want to be back to where I was in September. I was talking to somebody and I said September is not coming back, the whole format of search results has changed.
One of the biggest thing that has happened, I have seen sites that absolutely believe they were hit by the HCU or other updates, but no you are actually ranked 2 or 3, 4. Your ranking in the top results but going from the 1 to 2 can have a big impact. It’s more complicated that. The whole search results have changed, it’s possible that maybe things are better down the line.
That’s why on the recovery thing it is much more likely that hopefully it’s going to be a gradual process. The thing to really watch for is when we do updates. Google will have another update fairly soon, but it probably won’t or won’t have any updates from what we talked about here because we can’t run back and change it that quickly. It kills me because I know that’s going to be depressing and I’m also looking forward to the times on X.
Also one other thing was Google saying that his content was not the issue? So what was the issue? Here is that section:
According to Danny Sullivan, my “content was not the issue” when referencing the Mountain Weekly News so don’t let the HCU update make you automatically question your content. In fact it was clear all the website creators that were in attendance simply got caught up in an algorithm update, nothing more, nothing less.
You’re content doesn’t suck, if it did you wouldn’t be reading this. Even if you managed to lose traffic during HCU update.
So we lost traffic as a whole, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of publishers and it happened to be during the HCU update, but again it wasn’t your content that was the issue, surely not for the heartfelt niche site owners that had the courage to show up to Google and speak face to face with some of the team, perhaps responsible for our current position. But assigning blame won’t help. I came to Mountain View, California to look for solutions.
So it seems we should be seeing Google release a new search ranking update very soon. But at the same time, Google is telling those hit by previous updates not to expect to recover from this next update.
Here are more of Morgan’s posts, but also check out Mike’s write up:
I am grateful that I had the chance to meet some really cool people. Even within the niche of website creators, it’s hard to make friends who understand where you are coming from. This group of Google Losers really connected and hopefully with be a great network moving forward pic.twitter.com/xY3vPFemNB
— Morgan (@CharlestonCraft) October 30, 2024
The other Google employees there seems to either 1) deny that a problem exists or 2) hear our problems, but be 100% clueless as to how to fix it pic.twitter.com/gqeUtWM4fR
— Morgan (@CharlestonCraft) October 30, 2024
If you were hit by HCU, do not expect a recovery anytime soon. They told us repeatedly an update is coming “very soon” and to not expect recovery. If the feedback from this event is taken into consideration, it will not be this update OR the next one, MAYBE the next one 🫠🫠🫠 pic.twitter.com/cYNufkFJx1
— Morgan (@CharlestonCraft) October 30, 2024
Once again, thankful to be included. Please know I was a VOICE for publishers. I was very vocal. They know how I feel. Now, it is up to Google to take action. PROVE ME WRONG! Make the $400+ I paid out of pocket to be here worth it. Bring my content back to life. I’m watching! pic.twitter.com/c62608kNw0
— Morgan (@CharlestonCraft) October 30, 2024
Google Campus looks like a rad place to work, they have put a lot of thought into how to make their employees more productive, from games to healthy snacks and drinks everywhere. Update to follow later tonight on what went down at the Google Web Creator Conversation Summit…… pic.twitter.com/1GHg96kZ2p
— Mike Hardaker (@mountainweekly) October 30, 2024
Forum discussion at X.
Source link : Seroundtable.com
