2023 Quarter 1 Search Summary

As we approach our 10^th year in the business, the experts here at Click Intelligence have spent the last decade tracking the constant flux of changes within the wonderful world of SEO. The search engines love to keep us on our toes, but our amazing experts have their fingers firmly on the pulse when it comes to the latest search insights and developments so they can face any changes that come their way to protect your rankings, reach, and those all-important conversions!

Search is always moving, and the first quarter of 2023 has been packed with lots of exciting news that has left the SEO world buzzing. Since the start of the year, we’ve seen everything from AI to Google algorithm changes, and a new core update has popped up to say hello.

We’ve put together this handy quarterly roundup that details the most important SEO news that’s happened so far this year and what it means for digital marketers. Let’s get stuck in!

January

Google’s Helpful Content & Link Spam Updates Finish Roll Out

Google kicked the year off and confirmed that its Helpful Content and Link Spam Updates had been fully rolled out on January 12, 2023.

Aiming to crack down on content created purely for rankings, the Helpful Content Update gives points to websites with content that puts the user first and is relevant to their search queries. It is a global update affecting all languages. Although Google insisted that offending websites would not be penalized against, they will experience a stark drop in rankings.

Those who may have used shady link buildingLink building is a process of acquiring links pointing to your website. These links are obtained by creating content, participating in social media or commenting on other blogs. techniques in the past to get their rankings up would have shuddered at the thought of Google’s Link Spam Update. Targeting websites that have been buying and selling backlinks, the update would remove the value of such linksHyperlinks, also known as links, are the connection points on a webpage that take you to other webpages., meaning a decline in rankings could follow. What was worse was that Google announced it would not tell users if they’d been hit by the update via Google Search Console, which meant many faced uncertainty as it was rolled out.

What does this mean for SEO?

Both updates have had a big impact so far. To keep Google happy and bounce back from any drops in rankings as a result of them, marketers will have to:

For Helpful Content Update:

• Focus on their audience instead of purely rankings by creating valuable content that is relevant and people want to read
• Avoid AI-written content
• Refresh old or outdated content
• Become an expert or authority figure in their field
• Focus on evergreen topics that will always be useful (how-to guides, lists, reviews, top tips)

For Link Spam Update:

• Acquire only natural and relevant links
• Remove any spammy links from your site
• Produce original, helpful content that is optimized for search engines so people can find you
• Ensure your content brings value
• Check all inbound links have been acquired using the correct techniques

Take Care When Redesigning Your Website

A smaller snippet of SEO news that Google Analyst Gary Illyes drip fed on LinkedIn at the end of the month is that redesigning your website may cause its rankings to “go nuts.” He explained that moving around paragraphs and removing H tags can make it more difficult for the search engine to crawl and “make sense of the content” on your site.

What does this mean for SEO?

Of course, nobody wants to see their rankings drop after updating their website to try to improve it. Google bots use a website’s HTML code to crawl and index its pages and content to determine how to rank it. To combat this, make sure you use similar HTML in your redesign and avoid using tags where they aren’t needed. If you are unsure, it’s best to enlist the help of experts like our wonderful team here at Click Intelligence.

February

Bing’s AI Search Upgrade

Artificial intelligence (AI) is and will continue to be a hot topic for this year, and who could forget Microsoft’s potentially game-changing announcement that took place on February 7?

Bing’s AI search upgrade is powered by OpenAI’s Chat GPT technology and is intended to provide an improved search experience for its users by providing them with complete answers, a chat option, and even the option to generate content for them. At the time, Microsoft described the upgrade as being like an ‘AI co-pilot for the web’ that will make search easier for users by:

• Offering summarized answers from results
• Having a chat function so users can ask follow-up questions for more focused results
• Generating content for the user (e.g., trip itineraries for travel)

What does this mean for SEO?

As AI continues to be developed, it is expected that it will impact SEO campaigns at some point and could affect how websites generate organic trafficOrganic search traffic (sometimes called natural or unpaid search) is the traffic that's driven to a website because of unpaid placement on a search engine results page. from searches as links to pages may not be listed the same way as AI provides summaries of pages and hides some links with tabs. Although search engines like Bing are using AI to transform the search experience, AI-generated content is to be avoided by websites if they want to be viewed as trusted. High-quality and human content is more important.

Google Confirms AI Content Policy Despite Its Bard Announcement

The day before Microsoft made its above announcement, Google released its search engine chatbot Bard. It was received with mixed results after the technology gave incorrect answers to a search query at the launch, which was slightly embarrassing and saw a drop in the search engine’s market capital of $100 billion.

However, it would seem that Google was keen to clear up any confusion about its treatment of AI content with its new search guidelines, specifically on AI-generated content. It said that it will always favor high-quality content regardless of how it is created as long as it adheres to E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, trust).

What does this mean for SEO?

Google has said it won’t discriminate against websites that choose to use AI-generated content on their websites. Sounds great, right? Wrong!

If you reel out what AI has regurgitated from existing content, you won’t be providing the user with anything new and, therefore, not adding that all-important value to the user. Google doesn’t rate this. Therefore, it is advised that if you are using AI, do so with caution and sprinkle in that human touch along the way.

SEO marketers should look to:

• Focus on producing high-quality well researched expert-written content that is valuable and relevant to the user
• Come up with original ideas for content that relate to initial keyword researchKeyword research helps websites unearth the best keywords to drive traffic and visibility. This research is supported by a number of powerful web-based tools, the best of which we’ve listed here.
• Add a human touch to content to make it stand out
• Practice using AI as a tool, not a solution

Google’s Product Reviews Update

On February 21, 2023, Google announced its Product Reviews Update to align with the documentation on the update and how the system works.

It was being rolled out to 11 languages:

• English
• French
• Spanish
• Dutch
• German
• Polish
• Italian
• Portuguese
• Indonesian
• Vietnamese
• Russian

Its purpose was to filter out thin, surface-level content in favor of in-depth, well-researched reviews based on the writer’s true experience.

What does this mean for SEO?

Of course, the burning question is, what does this update mean for websites? Well, the update was only completed at the beginning of March, so it could be too early to tell just yet. However, Google will reward high-quality, helpful, and in-depth reviews over those that are merely product summaries.

To protect your web pages against a fall in rankings, make sure your review content:

• Shows what the product is like and demonstrates how it’s used
• Demonstrates expert knowledge and insight
• Compares other products by competitors and the brand
• Explains what makes it better than similar products
• Include in-depth research which backs up the pros and cons of products
• Emphasizes important decision-making factors. For example, if this is a restaurant review, key factors include service, taste, cost, and value for money
• Feature links
• Is enriched with multimedia content (images, video, etc.)

To keep up with the latest Google algorithm updates, look at our Google Updates History Guide.

March

Google’s Broad Core Update Goes Live

As the first quarter ends, Google announced it was rolling out its first Broad Core Update of the year on March 15, 2023. The update looks at all types of content in all languages and seeks to reward web pages that hit its criteria. Google releases a few broad core updates each year, which focus on how its bots assess content, meaning that pages that weren’t seeing results in the SERPs could now enjoy better rankings.

What does this mean for SEO?

As this update has just recently been announced and will take 2 weeks to be fully rolled out. Web pages will need to be recrawled, and it is hard to tell how it will impact rankings. The word on the grapevine is that this update will have a negative impact on those who use frowned-upon black hat techniques such as keyword stuffingKeyword stuffing is a technique that attempts to give pages higher rankings in search engine result pages by inserting the same keywords over and over again. and link schemes to get their content ranked by Google. Some drops in rankings may only be temporary, but some drops might stick.

Follow these steps to combat or avoid any lasting damage to your web page rankings:

• Make sure your content is of high quality and brings value to the audience
• Keep a watchful eye on metrics (page visitors, sessions, time on pageYour time on page metric tells you how long visitors are spending on your site. This can be an important measure of engagement, especially when looking at bounce rates and conversion rates., keywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. positioning)
• If you experience any drops, do a website and content audit to make sure your website is fully up to speed, no technical flaws are holding you back, and your content doesn’t have any gaps where your competitors are outranking you
• Fix any technical errors relating to mobile-friendliness, crawling, broken links, loading speeds, etc.

What Now?

So, there you have it! All the important changes that have happened in SEO in 2023 so far. If you’re concerned about how they could impact your website or don’t know how to make sure that your site is fully optimized with these updates in mind, then our Managed SEO service could be just what you need. This service allows you to sit back and relax while our expert teams take care of your SEO needs to see your rankings, clicks, and conversions skyrocket. There’s been a lot of big news so far this year, and who knows what the rest of the year will bring with it. Either way, we’re firmly strapped in to see what the next quarter of the year will bring!