One of the patterns of sites that were hit the hardest by HCU is that most or virtually all of their content was targeting “SEO keywords”.
In the data that you see, do you, Lily Ray, believe that the total % of “SEO keyword” content for a site is a major reason for a site getting hit with the HCU?
If so, do you believe that diluting the amount of overall SEO type content with more non-keyword focused (news, updates, other types of content) could eventually lift the punitive HCU from a site?
I believe a site owner should of course update/correct individual SEO articles to improve the helpfulness of those as well, says Spencer Haws.
But curious if you believe sites like Forbes and others that publish tons of non-SEO content alongside lots of SEO content is a big reason they may have been spared.
And could publishing more non-SEO focused content help site owners recover?
Yes, I think what you are saying makes sense, says Lili Ray.
Too much SEO content was definitely the biggest factor I found on the sites I looked at.
The other types of content you’re describing sounds like things legitimate brands/businesses do (the ones that do more than just make money off Google, heh)…
There appears to be a strong correlation between publishers focusing their resources on creating content for topics actively searched for on Google and those publishers subsequently experiencing a decline in performance.
Many site owners heavily invested in these topics, potentially at the expense of diversifying their content with opinion pieces, spotlights, interviews, news, and podcasts.
However, in many niches, there may be less interest and revenue potential for such diverse content types, and some site owners may not be inclined to create them.
The abundance of opportunities to write content that helps searchers has led Google to make a biased value judgment about what smaller site owners and publishers should prioritize.
Those who chose to create content primarily aimed at assisting Google’s users and monetized it through ads, similar to how Google monetizes its own products, have been demoted by recent algorithm updates.
This creates a double standard and catch-22 situation, as Google’s documentation for site owners explicitly encourages targeting keywords in content creation.