December 2022 Link Spam Update for Google Search

It is currently putting out its spam detection system, which Google has called the December 2022 link spam update.

It could take up to two weeks to finish this change.

The goal of this update is to make the system for finding spam work better and protect users from low-quality spam material.

Even though we don't know exactly what changes will be made in this update, it is expected that they will have a big effect on websites that use spammy link-building methods.

The press statement says that this update has made Google's AI-based spam-fighting system SpamBrain better at spotting fake backlinks.

The goal of the SpamBrain technology is to make it easier to find and get rid of artificial connections, like those on websites that buy or build links. Google thinks that this AI system has been taught well enough that it can now produce search results that are 99% free of spam.

In this way, Google's latest algorithm update will lower the rankings of low-quality websites that have unfairly gained from buying backlinks.

What do you think Helpful Content Update means?

Google says that the Helpful content update algorithm looks at each website's content using a few classifiers to decide if it is helpful or not.

The Helpful material update, on the other hand, affects the whole site. This means that Google will look for options even for helpful content if it finds a site that has a lot more bad content than good content.

Here are some important ways to classify material and figure out how useful it is.

Speculative Content

When a site is about hypothetical or highly made-up events or themes, it is likely that its content won't show up on Google. The official Helpful Content Update page says that content that claims to answer a question that hasn't been answered well enough shouldn't imply a release date for a product, movie, or TV show.

Keeping to a higher word count to help with rankings

Do you write tens of thousands of words just to make sure every word is there? Google says you are in the wrong because the reason you have so much information on your page is to trick search engines, not to help the person who is looking at it. With the Helpful content update, it's even more important to avoid the techniques that Google has been warning against for a long time.

Title & Content Mismatch

Use clickbait names to get people to come to your page without giving them what was promised. The happy content update becomes your enemy at that point. With the help of its language-learning systems like MUM and BERT, Google now knows which pages are important and which ones aren't. Make sure what you say in your work is true.

Look at the time spent on each page.

You should worry about this version mainly because of the following. If the customer is unhappy with the information you provide, your website is more likely to get a Helpful content update.

If Google notices that visitors to your website leave after a short time and then search again with the same query they used to find your page, it's a bad sign that your content didn't meet the visitors' standards.

If you want to keep people's attention for a short time, make sure your information is interesting. Use tactics to lower the number of people who leave your website right away. This will also make people stay on your site longer.

The expertise of the Content Creator

As has been seen, Google has been using a lot of EAT variables to rank YMYL pages. It looks like Google is expanding its reach, so the skill of content writers and their first-hand knowledge of whatever they write about will be very important.

Write for a Target Audience

You're more likely to see the benefits of the new Helpful content upgrade if your website writes about everything. This isn't always true, especially if your website is a news or publishing source.

Google tries to put each website in a specific niche market, and then it uses the information on the site to figure out how trustworthy it is. This means that you have to choose a niche market for your website and a main audience for it.

AI Content

If you run a website that uses AI technology a lot, you might need to rethink your plan.

Google's Helpful Content update could lead to penalties for websites that only use AI to make content without any human input or intelligence to make the content useful to readers.

Google is always trying to make its spam detection system better and improve the user experience. This upgrade is part of that effort.

How much this change affects your website will depend on how you build links and connect to other sites.

How to fix things after the update?

The Helpful content update affects the whole site, while core changes only affect the rankings of specific items on a site. In the days after the start, rankings, and traffic will generally go down for the affected sites.

Google says that the score of the affected sites won't go up unless the site owner tries to improve the content or gets rid of the content that users don't care about.

The search company that is the market leader says that its filters will keep judging the quality and value of content for many months. If the website improves its overall quality and stops putting out useless information, the ranking will go up and the old factors won't matter anymore.

Final Words

So that your site's ranking doesn't drop, it's important to make sure that your linking tactics are natural and meet Google's requirements.

Also, the Helpful Content Update, which was put in place last week, is still being used.