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HCU Recovery, Pruning Content, Sora, & How Reddit is Ruining the Top Searches

A lot is happening in the world of SEO and content this week! These are some of the hot topics that have graced my screens this week.

First, can you recover from HCU?

The BLUF: It can take several months for a site to recover from HCU. There are still very murky guidelines on what is ‘helpful’ content or what isn’t. While some claim that there are recoveries from HCU, the data says otherwise.

There was a ton of buzz on SEO Twitter this week as Google started a new firestorm talking about the HCU classifier. Is it always running? What does this mean? Can sites recover?

The Helpful Content Update was brutal. Of course, since then, we’ve been blasted with advice on what is helpful content and how to make our sites better…

Once again, the messages we’re getting from Google and the real-world data are just not adding up. Google says:

“Yes, it's totally possible (but not guaranteed) someone might see change from the helpful content system within a couple of weeks.”

You can see the full statement and discussion here.

I also thought the HCU classifier would be an ongoing, background kind of assessment, but in reality, I do not see this in the real world. I wish Danny was right, but I haven’t seen anyone recover in a few weeks, if at all.

I know Google wants us to make significant improvements on our sites, but it would be great to see some ‘North Star’ examples out there in the wild of publishers that have recovered.

The Data on HCU Recovery

The data on HCU tells a different story. For the sites that were hit the hardest, it’s also a much harder road to recovery (if possible).

I believe that recovery will be possible for some sites, yet I don’t think there is a quick and easy checklist of ‘do this’ things that will get us there.

Still, these discussions continue. But instead of getting clearer guidelines or offering us some hope, Google is murkying the waters once again. We need some hope, Google!

Yes, of course, Google wants us to produce the best, original quality content. They need original, quality content to feed their search results.

This becomes even more important with AI. AI-created copycat content does not help the Google machine produce better search results.

Does removing “unhelpful” content en masse help?

One thing Google has been telling us to do is to remove ‘unhelpful’ content.

This week, I asked my fellow content publishers about the value of removing ‘unhelpful content.’ One of my fellow publishers said he removed a ton of content on one of his sites, like 80%.

Has it improved rankings?

Not in the slightest.

So, take that as you will, but just removing ‘unhelpful’ content is probably not going to be enough for a full recovery, and it could lead to some serious issues as well.

Are you removing content that could be helping build topical authority?

Could you improve or optimize that content instead?

Removing content can be part of the overall process of optimizing and taking care of a site, but it has to be done with care.

When we analyze a site, we manually go through article by article and make recommendations to either optimize, remove, combine (with other articles), or leave articles.

To recommend an article be removed entirely from the site should not be taken lightly, but there are reasons to do this:

• If the article topic is something the site (as it is now) has no business covering, remove it.

• If the article is outdated and no longer relevant to your site today, and you don’t feel that an update will be helpful for your audience

You can do many things to improve and update thin content, depending on the topic. If given a choice, I prefer to rewrite and update thin content rather than remove it completely, but there are times when removing the content does make sense.

AI video creation is going to get much easier (and better).

OpenAI just released their text-to-video AI tool, Sora (not available to the general public yet), and the results are stunning! This can change the game, and we will soon see YouTube flooded with even more AI-created videos.

Check out some of the examples! Wild stuff, for sure.

Want to go down the Google comment rabbit hole?

So apparently, Google has indexed community notes, and if you are looking for a little nerdy SEO distraction today, here’s a fun rabbit hole to go down.

Type:

site:content.ucp.usercontent.goog "phrase you want to look up".

You’ll get tons of real people's comments and notes depending on the search term! I looked up search terms like “writer”, “SEO”.

Gems like this:

Yes. Reddit is full of spam, and more SEOs are spamming the forums and ruining top rankings.

Google has handed over the reins of quality to Reddit. The only problem is that it’s much easier to spam Reddit than typical search results.

As we stand today, product review results are the worst we’ve ever seen. Glen Allsopp analyzed 10,000 product review search results and continually proved this to be true.

You can see for yourself!

Content Optimizations: My Favorite Tools

Continuing our discussion on content optimization this week with some helpful tools we use and love!

My Favorite Overall Content Optimization Tool — Market Muse

MarketMuse uses AI to analyze your content and compare it to your competitors, offering insights on how to improve for better search engine rankings. I have been a Market Muse supporter and fan for many years; it’s part of our content optimization processes.

We also use Market Muse to help us evaluate the quality of our writers (are they covering the topics well?). Unlike other optimization tools; I know how deep the data they pull goes, so I’m confident that I’m getting the best suggestions for topical updates.

It can be expensive (although Market Muse currently has a free membership to try), but for those who care about quality content, there’s nothing quite like it on the market today.

The product team is made up of real-deal content strategists and SEO experts who do this daily, and they are always improving the overall tool (it can do a lot more than optimize).

They also have many free resources, guides, and interviews with some of the world's greatest SEO and content marketing experts for ongoing learning.

Semrush — Great for Improving Readability and More

While Semrush can do a lot, it does have some great article optimization capabilities as well. I like the Semrush SEO Writing Assistant, which helps improve content by analyzing SEO, readability, originality, and tone of voice. You can easily tweak it to find that sweet spot.

It also checks for keyword stuffing and can even identify broken links. These are all valuable fixes to make when you’re updating content.

Semrush is more of an all-in-one tool, but it can be a good investment if you add up all the tools you are replacing.

Chat GPT — Best for Quick Fixes

I love Chat GPT Premium and think it’s a great add-on tool to help with optimizations. It can quickly review your work, analyze your content, and make suggestions for improvements based on the prompts you give it.

ChatGPT can also brainstorm with you, and quickly answer queries. I like to think of it as my on-demand assistant that helps me do things faster.

Of course, it’s all about the prompts you use, and it can be a bit of a learning curve (compared to other tools), but once you get the hang of it, you’ll find new uses for mini-fixes and content improvement ideas!

Some Tips When Using Optimization Tools

When actively trying to improve your content, you have to remember what makes your content unique and special.

Just using the content optimization tools alone does not differentiate your content enough.

Remember to use any SEO or content optimization tool as a ‘tool,’ not treat recommendations as gospel. We must put our thinking caps on when using these tools and ask if these recommendations make sense to our audience and as experts.

Here are some dos and don’ts when using content optimization tools:

• Don’t use the top-ranking articles as your only guide. Consider what is at the top of the search engine results, but don’t hold those examples up as the shining light of your audience's needs. Instead, I like to see what’s currently ranking and think about why Google might be serving this result instead.

• Don’t overoptimize!! This can easily become a keyword-stuffing exercise if you feel that you have to add every topic or keyword and update every heading! Focus on what will improve the content and the topics that make sense to your audience; ignore the rest!

• Do add internal links. Optimizing content can be a great time to add natural, helpful internal links to other content.

• Don’t let optimization suggestions outweigh your expertise. I like to bring the experts into optimizations because they, more than SEO experts, know where the topical connections exist. They are also the best ones to veto suggested topics that don’t make sense to an expert.

• Don’t let the AI tools do the heavy lifting. They can do many things, but I still don’t trust the outputs 100%, and many can still hallucinate and add fluff.

• Do check for fluff. One way to see if there may be a fluff-filled section is to see where the optimization tool is not lighting up. That may be one section to take a closer look at!

🤔 Content Musings of the Week

🚫 It's not that easy to game the system in any field, including SEO. Black hat SEO can be more work than just doing the right things for your audience without the risks.

🔄 We can be overwhelmed by inaction just as much as decision fatigue. Sometimes, the best course of action is just to start doing something.

🌟 There is no such thing as boring content, just boring content creators. Every topic can be super interesting to someone!

Things to Read, Watch, and Ponder

▶️If you want to prune content, Market Muse has a great resource on properly doing it! Check it out!

▶️ Want more content optimization tool recommendations? Check out this list from our good friends at Indie Media Club.

▶️ Want to do a comprehensive site audit with free tools? It’s possible, and the brilliant Preeti Gupta walks us through it. Get the full guide here!

▶️ Need some marketing inspiration this week? Check out The CMO’s extensive guide with 50+ resources! #52 is my fave, lol. Check it out here!

Thank you for reading! I love all your comments; keep them coming. If you have any topics you’d like to me cover, I’d love the ideas as well!

Have a great week!

Cheers! Amy

P.S.) We have room for a few select partners who are ready to grow their content marketing channels.

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Some Bonus Newsletters You’ll Love

If you want to get into the weeds on these topics, here are some newsletters that I read regularly that I think you’ll enjoy: