What if I tell you that what YouTubers are telling you about the October spam update 2022 doesn’t cover the full scenario? There are a lot me things you should know as a blogger.
Stay tuned to know everything in detail. First, let me clarify: I will not give you any quick tips or shortcuts to bring back the traffic you lost due to Google spam updates.
In this article, I will explain how you should treat the Spam Update and what steps you should take further. The tips I am going to give you may be unlikely to you because they will be time-consuming and subjected to hard work.
In the last couple of weeks, I saw many YouTubers sharing tips to recover from the sudden drop in traffic volume.
But trust me, there is something different in the October spam update 2022, which will change the SEO game in the upcoming years. So rectifying some technical SEO issues will not help you float with the wave.
You may need to change your entire game strategy to keep your site safe from the upcoming updates from Google.
Let me also tell you that in this article, I am going to reveal some surprising facts that may seem incredible to you.
Go through the full article. You will get lots of useful information. Let’s see the first surprising fact.
A Google update is not bad news for you.
I know, you start thinking me crazy right? Let me explain this.
You should not get scared of any Google updates. In some cases, google updates create opportunities for small bloggers.
Think for a while; what are Google updates? What is the objective of an update? At any cost, Google wants to provide the best search result to the viewers.
These updates are filtering duplicate content, whipping out spammy articles, and ranking down the sites that try to manipulate Google’s algorithm.
Now what’s that mean to you? It means the sites that include copied content but rank earlier due to many backlinks will no longer rank.
More specifically, site owners who worked just to rank higher in Google will not gain any unfair advantage.
On the other hand, if your site is made to provide helpful information to people, then there is a possibility that your site will outrank the other sites in your niche.
Let me inform you that the spam update affected more sites than helpful content updates in 2022.
So, you should not panic and get demotivated with the updates; rather, focus on your content’s helpfulness.
So, how should I treat Updates?
People used to criticize Google for releasing frequent updates. But you must understand that bloggers like you and me are responsible for these updates. How? Let me explain.
Think for a while about what we bloggers do. We try every possible way to rank higher in the search result.
While doing so, we don’t notice that we subconsciously spam our site with unnecessary links or stuff our site with keywords.
We write articles by taking inspiration from others but not adding extra value for the viewers. As a result, google gets flooded with lots of duplicate content.
Suppose a viewer searches for a solution in Google to make an informed decision and gets the same repeated information after viewing the top ten results. In that case, it’s not a good search experience.
And bad search experience may lead them to switch the search engine, which is unlikely for Google. Now place yourself in the position of Google.
In such cases you surely will try to apply some sort of filtering process to wipe out the unhelpful spammy content, right? That’s what Google is doing with its updates.
So, instead of criticizing Google, you should treat updates positively from your side. And instead of recovering your site from updates, you should try to be synchronized with the updates.
Ok, but my site is affected by spam update. What should I do now?
If so, then first of all, you need to keep patience, wait for a couple of months, and keep publishing posts as you usually do. After the rollout of an update, google will start treating your site differently.
Some of your posts may lose rank, and some may rank higher. You may see a sudden shift in traffic within your site. So within a few months, your site may return to its earlier form.
And if your site does not revive after a couple of months, you must admit that you have done many things wrong. Some elements of your site go against Google’s policy.
Your SEO mentor taught you the wrong strategies, and you may be habituated with the wrong SEO practices.
In that case, with a heavy heart, I have to say that you may need to change your entire strategy. In the worst case, you may need to start from scratch. But you should not get demotivated and give up on blogging.
Yes, previously immature bloggers indeed made big money with simple hacks, but it is also true that hacks are unlikely to google as they harm good search experience.
In short, as many publishers enter this field, there will be lots of good and duplicate content for a single search query.
As a result, google will come up with frequent updates to filter the best search results. That means not only the SEO-friendliness but also the distinctiveness of your article will keep you in the game.
The summary of the above is you should mentally accept that the SEO industry will not work as it did earlier. The SEO practices that helped you to rank will not work anymore.
So, what is the solution?
Ok, now it is clear that you need to alter your game plan to keep pace with the new SEO trend. But the question is, what exactly should you do further?
Well, from my little less than three years of SEO experience, I will give you some tips about your dos & don’t further.
But let me tell you that the tips I will give you will be my recommendation. Please don’t consider these as predictions or ultimate solutions for your site.
Tip-1: Select a niche within your expertise and win topical authority.
At times, anyone could write and rank on a keyword without knowledge of the parent topic.
Earlier, most bloggers used to pick up the high CPC keywords and write blog posts on them no matter how much knowledge or idea they had on that particular topic.
Many blindly copied others, and some made their own by taking inspiration from others. But this is harmful both ways because it tends to create many duplicate and useless contents.
As I told you, new publishers are coming every year. In the future, google’s algorithm will prefer only the sites with topical authority.
So, pick up a niche you are an expert in and work on keywords that truly fall under your skill and area of interest.
Whether the CPC is high or low, it will save your site from future updates.
Tip-2: Try to cover every little query of your niche.
With the concept of topical authority, a new SEO term came forth in the last couple of years, that is, Parasite SEO. What is it? It is simply covering every little keyword of a parent topic.
It’s a pretty much straightforward way to achieve topical authority. When a site covers every little aspect of a topic, it gives a positive signal to Google that this site has a good grasp of the subject.
So don’t ignore the low-volume keywords; rather, use them to gain authority.
Tip-3: Make content different from competitors at a time differently useful for the viewers.
I know it sounds confusing. Please allow me some time to explain.
Let me inform you that after the October spam update, many sites with higher DA, PA, and with good topical authority lost massive traffic due to the other similar copycat sites.
Too much content on a single keyword generates a kind of spam alert that sometimes causes good content to fall under spam criteria.
So, the bitter truth is from now onwards; you need to make your content not only unique but also uniquely different from the competitors.
Your content should not look or sound similar to the others. You must have to provide something valuable that is not provided by others.
For example, you can use charts, graphs, relevant images, video references, and online tools that are not widely available.
Tip-4: Maintain a healthy balance while building backlinks.
Let me give you other useful information. After the October spam update, many sites ranked down due to backlinks from lower authority sites or the same sites.
A fellow friend showed me he had many organic backlinks on his site. But after the update, he lost massive traffic because most of that naturally built backlinks were from low DA and PA sites.
Earlier, SEO experts suggested collaborating is better than buying backlinks. Some also suggest adding so much value to articles people love linking back to you.
Yes, these are healthy practices, but from now on, you must also focus on maintaining a good balance among the outbound links.
No matter how you collect the links, try to collect those from good authority sites.
Tip-5: Avoid Ai generated and inspired by contents
In the last couple of years, many AI writing tools were launched. I saw many bloggers earn a lot just as affiliate commissions by reviewing the AI writing software.
You can easily guess how much the software developers could make. Trust me or not, these frequent updates from Google this year are the consequence of that sudden boom of AI writing tools.
Why? Because AI tools allow immature bloggers to produce lots of duplicates and garbage content, which causes a bad search experience.
So, no matter how advanced AI tools come into the market, Google will give its best to save its search engine algorithm with a counter-update.
Being a rational blogger, you should not even use AI tools to save the time you spend searching for subheadings of your article.
Tip-6: Review products available in your country and usually used by you.
I know I am hurting you now, but you have to accept the truth that Google and other search engines will be more strict in their publisher program.
Now Google is showing strictness in content helpfulness and spamminess. But in the future, you may have to prove your topical authority before submitting your site to the search console.
No, google has no urgency to do that but bloggers worldwide are creating an environment that may force Google to do that shortly.
Look, for higher affiliate commission or CPC; we don’t hesitate to do product reviews that we never used.
We don’t hesitate to cheat our viewers with review content we write by having ideas from 2 to 3 blog posts or reviews from the e-commerce sites. This information is collected by us, not verified by us.
Though you temporarily recovered your site from the October spam update with a few hacks, it will be affected by the next updates if your site includes that kind of review article.
Google bots will be getting smarter over time to detect which sites are the source of inspiration of your blog post.
So, to continue a safe blogging journey, I suggest you delete all the “inspired-by” articles from your site. Write reviews from your own experience and make them different from others as much as possible.
Encourage good blogging practices.
Video: Google Spam Update