September 2023 helpful content update: dates and what to do

What Google changed#

Google released the September 2023 helpful content update on 14 September 2023. The Search Status Dashboard entry is the whole of Google’s announcement: the update “improves our classifier,” and it “will take about two weeks to complete.” Google did not publish a Search Central post for it.

The helpful content system, according to Google’s ranking systems guide, was designed to show “original, helpful content written by people, for people,” rather than content made primarily to gain search traffic. This was the last time Google announced it as a separate update. The guide records that “in March 2024, it evolved and became part of our core ranking systems.”

When it rolled out#

The Google Search Status Dashboard logged the release on 14 September 2023 at 13:19 PDT. Google posted on 28 September 2023 that the rollout was complete as of that day, a total of 13 days and 11 hours, in line with its estimate.

No other announced update overlapped it. The August 2023 core update had finished on 7 September 2023, a week before this rollout began, and the October 2023 spam update started on 4 October 2023.

What is known about its impact#

Google did not publish impact figures for this update. Treat any percentage you see attributed to it as a third-party estimate, and check its method. Because the August 2023 core update ended only a week earlier, a comparison window that starts in August can mix the effects of both updates.

What site owners should do#

Google’s guidance for helpful content is its page on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content. It asks site owners to self-assess, ideally with help from someone unaffiliated with the site:

• Does the content provide original information, reporting, research or analysis?
• Does it provide substantial value compared with other pages in search results?
• Is the sourcing clear, with evidence of the expertise involved?
• Was it made for an existing audience, or mainly to attract search engine visits?
• Which pages dropped most, and for what types of searches?

How to check whether it affected you#

In Search Console, set the Performance report to cover September to October 2023 and compare clicks for the week before 14 September with the week starting 29 September. Starting after 7 September keeps the August 2023 core update out of the baseline. The Google Algorithm Updates timeline lists every confirmed update with its dates.

Related updates#

• The December 2022 helpful content update was the one before it.
• The March 2024 core update folded helpfulness into core ranking.
• The August 2023 core update ended a week before this rollout.