Google's Shift To Human-Focused Content
episode
Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
23 min
3 speakers
5 chapters
transcribed 29 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the overall theme of today’s episode and who is the guest?
The Voices of Search Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit IHear Everything.com. Welcome to the Voices of Search Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Ready to expedite your company's organic growth efforts? Sit back, relax, and get ready for your daily dose of search engine optimization wisdom. Here's today's host of the Voices of Search Podcast, Jordan Cooney.
Hello, SEOs and marketers. My name is Jordan Cooney from Previsible. Joining me today is Cyrus Shepard, who is the owner at Zippy SEO. Zippy SEO focuses on boosting online visibility in driving organic traffic. Zippy SEO provides innovative and effective search engine optimization solutions, specializing in everything from digital marketing strategies to helping companies reach their target. Target audience and online goals. Today, Cyrus and I are going to discuss Google's shift to human focused content. Okay, here's my conversation with Cyrus Shepherd, the owner of Zippy SEO. Cyrus, welcome to the Voiceless Search Podcast.
Jordan, thank you for having me. Happy to be here.
Pumped, um, you are one of the legends and icons of the SEO world. I I won't let you uh walk away from that title, but it's it's good to have someone who's been in the SEO space uh for a while and has been able to see the evolving nature of it, right? And uh I think that the forefront, Google's always been somewhat focused on on quality content and delivering an experience that ultimately you users find valuable, engaging. Uh, there's a lot to unpack there and debate. But for today's conversation, we're focused on what what is Google looking for in terms of human focused content, right? So I'd love to get your background on why this is an important topic today, how we've gotten to this place in the SEO world at this particular point in time.
Yeah, I I think the story goes back a long way. If if you've ever looked at hacker news, there's always this these articles popping up. Why does Google suck so much? You know, it's all affiliate links and SEO optimized content. And these articles are popping up for years on places like Hacker News and Reddit and things like that. And I think a couple of years ago, uh, Google started talking about helpful content, uh, releasing all these. Documents and things, but they didn't really do anything about it right away. They were just preparing folks. And then last fall, this big update happened, and we saw a lot of affiliate sites and ad-supported sites really drop in rankings. And uh, I took it personally because some of these sites were close to people I know, people risk losing their job.
It was actually it seemed like it had nothing to do with helpful content. I think what happened was Google was looking at these sites that got too good at SEO. And they were able to, you know, following advice of people like you and me over the years, they were able to outrank uh other other sites and rank with this affiliate content and ad content. And sometimes it wasn't the best experience. And I think it was a direct response to these posts on Hacker News, and Google had to make a shift and This is this is the aftermath. And I don't want to ramble on, but I think I think that sets the stage of what we're looking at here.
Yeah, no doubt. And I mean, I I think it's super fascinating, right? That the helpful content updates took place. And then all of a sudden Google came out with an update that was specifically focused on over optimizing or over SEOing is I think the exact quote that Danny or someone used to define that update, which seemed a little, in my opinion, myopic, right? It was it was like very focused on A narrow perspective that doesn't necessarily align with my opinion of Google's original purpose or mission, which is to create a good experience for users, right?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the overall theme of today’s episode and who is the guest?
0:00–5:33
2
Why did Google start pushing a “human‑focused” content update?
5:33–11:12
3
How did the Helpful Content update affect affiliate and ad‑supported sites?
11:12–16:51
4
What signals does Google reward for human‑focused pages?
16:51–21:55
5
How is AI‑generated content challenging Google’s new direction?
21:55–22:45