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Blog entry by Ricardo Greenlee

HCU Google Update

HCU Google Update

The HCU Google update (pronounced "hoo-see") marks a fundamental shift in Google's algorithm for the ranking of website content. It shifts away from only SEO-optimized pages towards content that is tailored to align with the user's needs and offers worth. This has meant that some websites have seen their visibility improve following HCU and others have seen a decline and a debate has ensued with digital marketing specialists on its efficiency and fairness.

Google's Helpful Content Update was intended to tackle the rise of low-quality, keyword-stuffed content while prioritizing quality information that helps users with their searches. Thus, websites who focused on driving large numbers of visitors with low-quality articles that are heavy with keywords will see their search rankings and visibility suffer, while websites that focussed on the improving the user experience through providing helpful and informative pieces to their users would experience increases in ranking and visibility on Google.

What qualifies as "helpful" content is often subject to interpretation and can leave digital marketers as well as SEO specialists worried about potential biases in the algorithm. In addition, many critics say the importance of helpfulness can result in favouring some web sites or perspectives over other which could limit diversity in the results of a search. However, the majority of SEO and webmasters specialists agree that the HCU Google update is an crucial step toward improving search results by prioritizing information that meets the intent of users and provides value.

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While Google continues to roll out its HCU updates, SEOs must remain aware of any modifications made to the algorithm of Google to ensure that their sites continue to rank well. This will mean revising existing content and modifying it to be in compliance with HCU standards - like changing old content, updating blog posts, or incorporating multimedia elements in them.

SEOs should keep track of their rankings and traffic on Google Analytics 4 regularly as changes like fundamental algorithm updates or HCU algorithm updates could need quick changes to their strategies to keep their sites in good standing with Google. By doing this, SEOs can quickly adapt their strategies in order to ensure that their sites continue to rank well with its algorithms.

Last, but certainly not the least important, is to know that Google's prior HCU system is no longer functioning as an autonomous system that affects websites twice a year, more so, it's now the basis of their ranking algorithm, which runs on a continuous basis and therefore, specific drops in rankings may no longer be linked directly with HCU but rather one of hundreds of signals incorporated in Google's primary algorithm.

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