Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, posted again about the timing around recovering from the helpful content update. He essentially repeated what Google said back when it first was announced, that the classifier is always running to check if content is helpful but it takes time to prove to Google that your efforts are long-term.
The issue came up when a thread on X spoke about how no one has seen a recovery for a site hit by the helpful content update. And to be honest, the September 2023 Google helpful content update was the most serious helpful content update – it adjusted its classifier to make certain “improvements.” Since then, it seems there have been no recoveries for sites hit by that update.
Morgan Overholt wrote on X, claiming that Google’s Search Liaison told her that “a site could recover within 2 weeks of making changes” specific to the helpful content update. In which, the Google Search Liaison said no, he did not say that. He wrote in response on X, “I don’t recall giving a specific timeframe like that. It would be unusual for me to do so, because it’s not what we say in our documentation. It’s not something I’ve also said in posts when people ask about this. Apologies if I misspoke or perhaps confused this with something else.”
He added that the help document says:
A natural question some will have is how long will it take for a site to do better, if it removes unhelpful content? Sites identified by this system may find the signal applied to them over a period of months. Our classifier runs continuously, allowing it to monitor newly-launched sites and existing ones. As it determines that the unhelpful content hasn’t returned in the long-term, the classification will no longer apply.
Here are those posts:
I don’t recall giving a specific timeframe like that. It would be unusual for me to do so, because it’s not what we say in our documentation. It’s not something I’ve also said in posts when people ask about this. Apologies if I misspoke or perhaps confused this with something…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 9, 2024
The document also says: