A week ago we wrote about the timing it takes to recover from a Google helpful content update. Then on Friday, Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, added more clarity on the fastest time a site can possibly recover after being negatively impacted by the helpful content update.
In short, it still can take several months to recover from the helpful content update and truth is, we have not really seen a case of a site hit by the September 2023 helpful content update recover yet. Some say they have but I have yet to see a real case of this -let me know if I am wrong.
As a reminder, in Google’s original communications around the helpful content update, Google told us that Google needs you to prove, over several months – yes – several months – that your content is actually helpful in the long run.
It doesn’t want to be in a position where you drop from the HCU, you may a change the next day, you rank better again, so you put your content back the way it is. It wants you to have long term evidence of helpful content and that can take “several months.”
So what did Google say on Friday that is new? I covered in my story from last week that that one content writer, Morgan Overholt, said that Sullivan said at an event that you can recover within 2 weeks. I heard the recording and Sullivan said it is possible to recover “within a couple of weeks.” I thought Sullivan misspoke or misunderstood the question, so I called it out (heck, we all misspeak or misunderstand stuff all the time, we are human).
Sullivan replied on Friday on X saying, “Yes, it’s totally *possible* (but not guaranteed) someone might see change from the helpful content system within a couple of weeks.” But he added it is unlikely, he said, “I should have said it might take several weeks to several months or just several months.”
Here is the full post:
Thank you. I appreciate the clarity here that I did not say two weeks.
I try to be as careful and precise with responses as I can, because what I say on behalf of Google Search carries a lot of weight. I (along with anyone at Google Search) really don’t want people to misinterpret what we say.