How Google Killed the Blogger
And what you can do about it
"Never before in history have 50 designers made decisions that would have an impact on two billion people"—Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google
Google turned 25 in September 2023. Its gift to the world? A giant middle finger to how the internet operates, neatly packaged as the ‘Helpful Content Update.’
Google pitched this update as a noble crusade for quality.
The idea was simple: help the 8 billion searches a day prioritize content created for people, not just for the sake of ranking high in search results.
On paper, it sounded like a digital utopia — a place where the user’s quest for genuine, valuable content would always be satisfied. But beneath this Potemkin Village of user-centric improvement, the update harbored a more complex reality.
It was a response to an endless battle against the deluge of low-quality, search-engine-optimized (SEO) content that clogs the arteries of the internet.
Google was attempting to clean house and bring back a sense of authenticity and reliability to search results.
How did they change how articles appear in search?
User-first approach
An emphasis on authenticity and Expertise
Discouraging misleading and over-optimized content
The new approval of quality AI-generated content
Or in Google’s own words, “those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high-quality, people-first content demonstrating qualities E-E-A-T.”
People-first content — even if a machine produces it.
What This Change Really Meant
At first glance, this sounds fantastic! People far and wide have had a growing gripe with the general shittiness of search results and the websites that populate them.
I type a question.
I want a simple—and correct—answer.
Before Google's update, navigating the internet often felt like wading through a slimy swamp of ads, spam, and scams. Websites were greasy salespeople, pushing content crammed with ads and keywords, hoping to grab a spot on the first page of Google’s search results.
This ad-centric motivation turned websites into a jungle of clickbait and low-value content.
Think about the classic experience of searching for a simple recipe online.
What should be a quick look-up turns into a 2,000-word expedition through someone’s life story, complete with a detailed account of what led them to create today’s ever-so-exclusive peanut butter and tuna sandwich.
Why?
Because the longer the content, the better it ranked on Google (among other things), something they repeatedly denied but many people anecdotally proved. These lengthy narratives aren’t just annoying, they’re strategically designed to play Google's ranking game.
Or consider the frustration of finding trustworthy health advice.
What you often encountered was a maze of dubious sites offering miracle cures, littered with ads for products of questionable efficacy. This scenario made it challenging to distinguish between legitimate advice and dangerous misinformation.
How do you know if this website is run by Alex Jones, whose giant misinformation reach is a front to peddle millions of dollars worth of snake oil to non-critical thinkers?
You don’t.
At least not without spending hours researching all of the totally 100% legitimate sciencey references (but only the science his tribe would trust, of course).
These examples reflect a broader issue: the quality of information on the internet was compromised by a relentless pursuit of ad revenue and search engine rankings.
It’s a system built to incentivize quantity over quality, often leaving users overwhelmed and underinformed.
Google’s new update, with its emphasis on user-first content and the crackdown on SEO manipulation, promised to turn the tide.
After all, they labeled it a “helpful content update.”
But what did this shift really mean for the everyday internet user?
Did it signal the end of the ‘memoir recipe’ era, or was it just the beginning of a new chapter in the complicated relationship between search engines and content creators?
I’m Sure You Already Know the Answer
In September 2023, Google's Helpful Content Update introduced a pivotal change, placing more of a spotlight on a concept known as EEAT — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
This marked a significant shift in how content was evaluated and ranked.
Google's emphasis on EEAT wasn't entirely new, but its full implementation in the 2023 update brought it front and center. This was, in part, a response to the growing concern over the quality of information available online.
One of the key elements of this change was the weight given to personal experience.
For instance, if you bought the latest iDGAF gadget and shared your honest feedback online, your review might now rank higher than a comprehensive, researched article by a tech website, which may or may not have actually used the object in question.
It was a strike against the facade of false expertise, aiming to elevate genuine voices and experiences.
Finally, FINALLY, the internet could return to its more humble roots of real people giving real advice to real people.
Hell, why didn’t they just do this in the first place?
Because Google Doesn’t Give a Shit
But wait a second.
Google’s algorithms can’t really know if someone has experience with a topic, right?
Of course not.
What they can do is track all the mentions of someone across the vast web in relation to the subject at hand.
If I’m searching for information on childcare, I’d hope to find webpages full of information created and verified by a 50-year-old Harvard-educated pediatrist named something fancy like Dr. Gregory Wallace.
Google first translates the search ‘contextually’, where it tries to understand the true meaning of what a user asked for by expanding the words it could match up with.
Ex. ‘Childcare’ could become ‘healthy child’, ‘toddler well being’, or ‘care for children’.
Then it’ll tap into its massive database to find the most mentions for childcare across the web, using over 200 ranking factors, and zone in on those with the most references from other websites and authority sources where, contextually, ‘care for children’ was mentioned.
And then, oops, Epstein pops up.
The system can’t be perfect, by the very nature of its incentivized design.
If AI can write articles that rank on Google, isn’t that some twisted sort of logic if the rewards are supposed to be for people-first content?
Moreover, relying heavily on personal experience introduces a subjective element into what ranks higher on Google.
Just because someone had a unique experience with a product or a situation doesn't necessarily make their perspective the most helpful or accurate.
Does one person's experience outweigh a well-researched piece?
Those With Experience Are Now King
Since mid-September, Google’s been valuing companies with lots of experience and trust (as it deems). Those with the most history, a legitimate company, and mentions all across the internet are now given authority above most others.
And authority (or Domain Authority, DA, for short), in this game, is king.
In Google’s new almighty algorithm’s eyes, there are some new landlords in town (and being top in search results is indeed a form of real estate):
Quora
Reddit
LinkedIn
Medium
Large news sites like Forbes, CNN, and New York Times
For those unaware, Quora serves as a knowledge-sharing (read: 30-second opinion) platform where questions meet answers. While Reddit's vast subreddit communities gather a wide collection of people to talk on virtually any topic. LinkedIn is now a cesspool of corporate speak and braggarts and Medium is a mostly left-leaning cornucopia of random thoughts on a million different subjects.
I’m not knocking these platforms, I’m present on most of them.
But you might note, dear discerning reader, that nowhere in those descriptions do you see a requirement for expertise or trust.
Yet, Google determines them to be exactly that.
That new emphasis on authority and experience greatly increased the value of a website if it has real live humans interacting and talking about a subject.
As in, forums.
It’s why if you ask a question on Google now, you’re far more likely to see a non-sensical answer from Quora at the top of the page.
It’s why when someone searches for “Is Hawaii in one or two timezones?” on Google, the first result is written by J Tang, who wrote an answer with no upvotes and has expertise listed as, “civic org volunteer” over six years ago.
It’s why when you ask what full stop punctuation means, instead of an authority on grammar or language, you get AustrianMadman whose bio is listed as “Austrian guy idk.”:
And it’s also why you find formerly respectable news organizations like Forbes answering non-business-related questions such as:
or
or
Are these examples just my anecdotes and not statistically valid? Sure, but they serve a point.
I found each of those articles by searching some of the most visited web pages on those companies with an SEO tool.
Hundreds of thousands of views every month for each article.
None posted from actual experts.
But in Google’s eyes, those sites have history, an incredible amount of content, huge Domain Authority, pay them millions in ad fees, and, most importantly, have real-life human experience.
All of these random factors combined, and praise be!
According to the SEMRush SEO tool, Quora’s traffic increased almost 300%, to the tune of 261 million more visitors per month from Google.
While Reddit’s traffic went up 100%, for an extra 200 million views per month too.
Medium more than doubled since last year right alongside LinkedIn. The various ‘news’ sites with their ever-expanding topic list have had minor gains, but more importantly, reversed the long-term trend of slowly shrinking views.
There are likely far more examples of this, but it’s not an easy subject to collect data for (especially as a generalist).
Why This Matters
For fans of Reddit, Medium, and LinkedIn, you might be pleased. For fans of Quora, you might not exist. For bloggers and those who have constructed their livelihoods on building niche sites, you should care — a lot.
Why?
For one thing, an extra 1 billion or so monthly views (which is likely far higher) going to these companies means they’re earning a tremendous amount of extra revenue from ads.
For Reddit, depending on which Google ‘expert’ you want to believe, in 2022 they earned roughly $500 million from ads.
Double the traffic, double the ad earnings.
Same goes for Quora and LinkedIn and all the news sites pilfering random articles to whoever will lap them up.
That’s at least good for those private companies and investors and users who want the platforms to continue.
But put it in another way.
Those views are coming from somewhere. For the most part, the real estate of Google search land isn’t so much ‘a rising tide that raises all ships’ as much as it is ‘if your boat sinks mine might float higher.’
As in, inside the Google search game, if one website gets the first hit from all searchers, the 2nd - 100th site might get none.
And who are those 2nd sites?
Bloggers who spent thousands of hours crafting content around their favorite hobby.
Small businesses who invested hard-earned money in building a reputable resource of articles around their specialty.
Newish large businesses that spent hundreds of thousands of their marketing budget being promised a much higher ROI on their SEO investment rather than spending far more on ads every month.
And, of course, scammers, automated bloggers, and every other ‘blackhat SEO’ creator out there.
If that last group suffers — great! That’s what the public wants from the only real search engine in town.
But those first few groups…
Oh boy.
Just spend a few minutes scrolling the top posts in the SEO subreddit and you’ll be bombarded with first-hand stories of marketers’ and business owners’ traffic getting absolutely crushed.
Take this poor company for example.
For years, they provided a service of trying to help parents discern what products are suitable for their kids. They had a ranking metric, a distinct process in place, hundreds if not thousands of products reviewed at this point, and a general spirit of trying to help parents while making enough money for their small business to continue employing five to ten people.
And then September’s Helpful Content Update hit:
From 2 million a month to under 100,000 and no sign of the results turning back. I’d be surprised if those 5-10 people don’t become 0-0 any day now.
How many more small businesses out there were affected in the same way? This data is hard to track, so I doubt it’ll ever make the news.
If a company like Facebook lays off 10,000 people, it’s all over the press for a week. If 1,000 no-name companies quietly lay off 10,000 people, no one would know.
If a tree falls in the woods — updated for 2024.
Remember, not all sites on the internet are built to spam you.
Many recipe blogs were started by honest-to-goodness chefs who wanted to share their recipes.
Lots of hobbyists wrote hundreds of posts about their favorite crafts and creations.
Tonnes of small to medium-sized businesses invested in getting their own products and expertise to show up on Google for their potential customers.
These are not bad people trying to get attention.
Recipe blogs became bloated and ridiculous because of what worked on Google.
Hobby sites had hundreds of only slightly related grade-school written articles because visitors to those might go onto their real content and products — because Google then valued their overall site as being better.
SMB’s followed the same strategy, if only because it worked and they couldn’t afford to pay $10s of thousands to Google for the same traffic.
The internet is full of crap because Google incentivized it to be.
And It Only Gets Worse
Another consequence of all of these updates to the almighty algorithm is directly tied to the value of being one of Google’s ‘chosen ones’.
If you own a brand, and one that is a respectable well-established authority in Google’s eyes, this update was probably a godsend to you.
Because now when you search for help on a subject, especially if it’s related to a chosen brand, you have to scour through dozens of non-related-to-the-question-you-asked results to find anything meaningful to you.
For decades, people have built up websites around the idea of helping others in their specific field. Sometimes it was small developer forums or just people knowledgeable about a type of product or service.
In many cases, these niche websites are incredibly helpful.
Want to learn piano? Hundreds of small creator blogs can help you learn everything from beginning to advanced via text and video.
Need to know the ins and outs of using complex software like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Excel?
You don’t have a care in the world because hundreds of people who became experts in those software spent thousands of hours creating guides and asking the many, many questions that arise from using them.
Now if I search for a random question on Excel, guess who pops up first?
The owner of Excel; Microsoft.
Or if I want to digitally paint a pretty picture of a monkey dipping his half-eaten banana in Sundar Pichai’s morning cereal, who is there to try to help me?
Why, it’s Google’s new experts, of course!
Put a brand name in your query on how to navigate a brand’s often-time overly complex ins and outs and you’re now far more likely to get ‘an answer’ directly from them.
The problem is, if those brands were perfect at answering these questions those thousands of blogs showing people how to use their products wouldn’t exist in the first place!
Many large companies, not all, are plagued by ridiculously inadequate answers in their help section.
Let alone not answering enough questions, never giving enough specifics, or just plain ignoring a problem because it wouldn’t make business sense to admit to it. Businesses don’t like to write about problems with their products.
Or take, for example, The Points Guy, created by a random dude named Brian Kelly.
He started his blog part-time in 2010 posting deals he found while scouring the internet to save his friends and colleagues money on their trip planning.
He researched and found deals, discussed what he wanted to do when traveling, and helped people find ways to game frequent flyer miles and other incentive programs.
Eventually, the company expanded and he got rich from this endeavor.
Great story.
Except he couldn’t do the same thing again today without a marketing budget of tens of thousands of dollars or spending thousands of (extra) hours building even more content.
Google’s ‘people first’ approach simply wouldn’t deem Brian Kelly to be an authority on the subject, nor trustable, nor have had real-life experience to add.
Don’t get me wrong.
He could still get some traffic, some views, and some built-up domain authority if he started over today, but the journey to his ultra-success would be at least 10x harder.
Because in Google’s eyes today, Brian Kelly would be a nobody.
And nobody’s don’t get no traffic.
On the flip side, if Mr. Kelly were to take the same approach while creating the content on, say, MasterCard.com, his dream would fare a far higher chance of being successful.
But, of course, the millions he made would be in shareholders’ pockets and not his.
In Google’s eyes, Mastercard has expertise and authority.
The Canary in the Monopoly Mine
Perhaps the scariest part of all the many changes Google has been rolling out is something they call Search Generative Experience (SGE).
Google's now rolling out generative AI in their search to help users get straight to the point. Instead of just showing links, it sums up the info you're looking for into brief, easy-to-read answers. Theoretically, this means you spend less time digging through websites to find what you need.
As in, even less traffic for all those wannabe Brian Kellys out there.
If you thought ChatGPT would end up replacing search, so did Google! The stats aren’t really in yet, but a team at The Atlantic estimated up to a 75% decrease in reads on their articles from Google search once it’s fully in play.
Considering similar news sites get at least 40% of their traffic (or 80% for sites like Investopedia) from Google, their days could be numbered, at least for a good portion of them.
Millions of blogs out there will be affected too.
And the irony?
Google’s SGE is supplying summarized answers to the public from the very websites it’s now skipping.
Talk about cutting out the middleman!
As a holder of two fancy-but-useless papers called ‘business degrees,’ I’m normally all for that. But in this case, the middleman is now the dried old tuna meat in a sandwich of bread made of capitalistic monopoly wet dreams.
Not to mention, SGE apparently will summarize anything under the sun into easily digestible tidbits of information.
As if our society needed further impetus towards becoming increasingly hooked on quick dopamine fixes, Google now enables us to grasp the utterly complex essentials of physics in just a single paragraph!
So now we have Google giving far more credence to ‘expert’ domains and brands that have years of presence on the internet, whether or not the content inside is fundamentally good, useful, or trustworthy.
And those actual experts that don’t work for big-name companies writing all of the fundamentally good, useful, and trustworthy articles are getting their content scraped by Google, to be presented by Google, to the users of Google (which is 84% of the internet).
If you want your own content getting in front of users’ eyes before the SGE dumbs it down into oblivion?
Well, there’s a simple answer.
It’s No Coincidence Ads Are Getting Worse
In all of the scenarios above, Google wins.
Does the traffic go to Quora instead of a well-researched blog that may or may not have ads?
Google ads show on Quora — winning.
Does the user not even click on a website because the (correct/incorrect) answer was found on Google’s SGE?
Google ads show on searches — winning.
Do many small and medium-sized businesses now have to pay for more sponsored posts on search engines to get anywhere near the same traffic?
Google ads are sold to these very businesses — winning.
Too much of a stretch?
Here’s Google’s own financial statements comparing Q4 2022 to Q 2023:
Put together, that’s almost a 12% increase in revenue year over year for a product that hasn’t changed or increased in usage.
It’s almost like they’re doing this on purpose.
Oh wait, they legally admitted it.
Ever wonder why you’re seeing so many repeated often unskippable ads on Youtube now?
Well, almost a year ago, YouTube found itself in the ever-so-sad situation of lowering quarterly revenue for three straight quarterly periods in a row in 2021 and 2022. As in, they made slightly fewer billions of dollars than usual.
Jump forward a year and we get:
When money machine stop going brrr, one must increase the number of ads, the length of the ad, the cost of the ad, and pay the creators less money to show those ads!
Basic short-term stock price logic 101.
Hopefully, it’s beginning to become apparent the “Helpful Content Update” is only helpful to those able to pay for it.
And far more than they used to.
So, Is Blogging Dead?
Not yet, but in my view, the ROI has significantly dropped.
If you’re a blogger or writer or anyone who has an inkling to start a new site to publish content that will do well on Google, I could reword the company’s extensive list of generic and useless advice they showcase.
Or I could take a step out of Google’s new strategy and have an AI summarize for you, only from the perspective of a cat:
"Make content that purrs, not content that purrsuades." If your articles are more about clawing up the SEO ladder than sharing the cat's whiskers of wisdom, you're barking up the wrong tree. Aim for purrfection by offering something as satisfying as a sunbeam nap. Before you put paw to keyboard, ask yourself: "Is this something worthy of the top shelf, or am I just coughing up another hairball?"
Great attempt, CatGPT.
But even that advice isn’t so purrfect.
From everything I’ve gathered on this subject since September (and believe me, I’ve obsessed about this after my own results tanked), there are a few strong lessons learned.
#1. Brand is now king.
Bill Gates once foretold in 1996, “content is king.” That throne is now shared by brand presence. The bigger your brand presence around the internet, not just your website, the better it will perform.
What does this mean in general?
Your brand’s authority should be established on not only your website, but many of the popular platforms that now reign Google search. Having even a slight presence on LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, Medium, and YouTube referring to your company, products, and expertise can have a profound effect on your traffic.
If you’re brand is already well known in Google’s eyes, creating long-tail content will have an easier time ranking now than before.
If you’re creating a new brand in an existing industry, this step is more important than ever.
Traditional SEO strategies can still work, but the overall website matters more now.
#2. People power.
Google has deemed active forums and comment sections to equal experience and authority. If your brand has no feedback from real live people that is easily accessible on the internet, you no longer matter to Google.
A few questions might help put this one in perspective:
Does your website have comments enabled? Many don’t, but you can easily enable articles to have comment sections and screen the posts before making them live.
Does your website have a help section with a forum for user-generated questions?
Do people talk about your brand on Reddit or Quora?
Do influencers post about your product on various social media platforms?
While all of these aren’t necessary, even a few simple additions to a company’s website can make a good difference.
#3. Text AND video.
Google is trying to compete with the rise of TikTok. They already own YouTube for that, ostensibly, but just look at why they introduced YouTube Shorts. It wasn’t for shits and giggles, it was to fight back:
“Almost 40% of Gen Z is using TikTok and Instagram for search instead of Google”
Perhaps you’ve noticed the top of Google results now shows videos half the time instead of just text or sponsored ads. This is why.
What can you do?
Pick the most popular posts on your website (or the ones you want to be most popular) and have videos created on the same content — then pop the video at the top of the article.
If you have a budget, make videos for as much content as you can, answering questions related to your product.
If you’re even more keen, recraft the same videos for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram — but mainly YouTube because Google prefers that (because they own it, what a coincidence!)
#4. Boast about your expertise.
This one is difficult for some people. You have to brag. While most companies feature an "About" section on their websites, only a few dedicate space to discussing the individuals who make up the company.
Does the About section talk about the company’s story, who was involved, and why they created this business?
Do the articles on your website list an author?
Does that author have a bio page? Does that author actually have related experience to your niche?
Do the authors and owners of the company have mentions on external sites?
Does the company have any awards, grants, or certifications? Are those linked to the award-granting websites where the company is mentioned?
Essentially for this point, any sort of authority your website can get from any legitimate source should be written and linked to if possible. Even better if those external sources link to your website.
These points are not easy to implement.
But that, in a sense, makes them far more valuable. How many of your competitors will be implementing these changes or already have? If they’re not, and you do, you can bet your monopoly money your site will start outranking them.
What About Bloggers?
SEO isn’t dead, but it sure as hell is a lot harder to do now. If you’re in the position of thinking about creating niche websites as a side hustle or new career to make money, you might want to pause for a moment.
I would strongly hesitate to create a new website from scratch unless you have a strong interest in the subject, are willing to completely ‘niche down’ and only write about one topic, and have a strong presence on the web with your name.
If you have no expertise in the area and it’s a topic in what Google calls YMYL — just don’t bother.
For example, our systems give even more weight to content that aligns with strong E-E-A-T for topics that could significantly impact the health, financial stability, or safety of people, or the welfare or well-being of society. We call these "Your Money or Your Life" topics, or YMYL for short.
If it’s in a less important niche, like a hobby site, for example, the old rules of SEO still apply — they’re just hindered.
For one thing, reviews were cracked down on hard this past year. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t include reviews, but if you look at the huge expectations for what Google now wants, it might make you think twice.
Reviews are now a lot of work (as perhaps they should be).
I also wouldn’t bother creating an anonymous blog at this point. If you search around, you’ll see this is all the rage in recent years, especially with “faceless” YouTube channels.
Sure, they might still be effective for now, but it’s just a matter of time until brands create the same content in both text and video form and render the faceless channels into faceless history.
On the other hand, if you do have a specialty or expertise, especially if it’s confirmed online in external sources (ie. Wikipedia or a university website), now might be the best time to create a branded niche website.
Of course, if it’s a new site and even with a proper SEO’d content plan, it will still take a long time to rank up. But the gains from a properly approached branded content plan will be able to outrank those without genuine authority or expertise any day of the week.
Except if it’s competing with Forbes or Facebook or the giant technopoly that quietly rules the internet.
The Unhelpful Content Update
This move by Google, while beneficial for users in certain respects, created huge new barriers for the ‘little guy’ seeking to carve out a space in the vast expanse of the web.
The internet was once celebrated as a level playing field where content quality and relevance, not the depth of one's pockets or the strength of one's brand, determined visibility and success.
But the implementation of updates like these marks a departure from that ideal, a shift towards a more corporatized, monopolized internet landscape.
In essence, what Google has termed an initiative for “helpful content” can be interpreted as corporate speak for "We've paved the way for billion-dollar companies to monopolize even more of the digital pie!"
This monopolization of visibility and authority not only stifles innovation and diversity but also consolidates the control of information and audience reach into the hands of a few, well-established entities.
For small businesses, independent bloggers, and niche content creators, the uphill battle for visibility has become steeper.
The nuances of EEAT, coupled with the algorithm's preference for content from established platforms, mean that competing on the internet requires resources and branding that many simply do not possess.
The irony here is palpable: in an effort to combat the deluge of low-quality content, Google's update inadvertently champions a digital ecosystem where only the most prominent players can thrive.
This is not just about SEO or content strategy; it's about the essence of the internet itself and what it means for the future of digital expression and entrepreneurship.
The "Helpful Content Update" is a poignant reminder of the shifting dynamics of the internet—a space that once offered unbridled freedom and opportunity, now gradually succumbing to the encroaching shadows of monopolism.
All this, stemming from decisions made by a select few, as Tristan Harris poignantly highlighted.
To finish all this off, here is, perhaps, the best example of the new Google algorithm I came across:
An anonymous high school essay about JFK.
J.J. Pryor
If you’re a blogger or business struggling to get noticed, please feel free to reach out.