Recently during Google Search Central live event in Zurich Search Liaision Danny Sullivan made some remarks about content. This was shard with me on X, coming from Mr Jonathan Jones who attened the event and wrote these takeaways post.
Jonathan mentioned that Googler Danny Sullivan said “Would you create this content for your readers if Google didn’t exist?”
Also Danny said “We’re trying to understand if we think that content is helpful, reliable, useful, and satisfying to people.”
For me as someone who for last 5 years have been working publishers and focused on optimising the content specifically for Google Discover. Its not suprising actually! Because for all these years I have been working on building strategies which are focused on interest based content rather it being structured in a spcific way for achieveing higher ranking in Google’s search results.
Because for Google Discover primary purpose of content optimisation is to align with specific interest audience groups because that’s how Google Discover works! It have access to the whole activity of a Google user – what they have been searching, what they have been watching on Youtube (amongst other things).
Based upon all this Google Discover categories any user into a specific interest group and once there is something which the algorithms building the Discover feed assume to be aligning with the interests of an audience group. That specific piece of content gets visibility in the feeds of Discover users.
And now Googler Danny Sullivan saying “Would you create this content for your readers if Google didn’t exist?” I think this almost aligns with what I generally do! Where content is being structured and optimised, even in some cases if to create that content or not, is never being decided based upon the fact that those pages will rank in Google’s Search results or will show up in the Google Discover.
Primary thought process behind that is just – if this piece of content will be appealing and interesting to a specific audience group? That’s it and go ahead with creation/publication of that content.
Even though that’s the best strategy I think to create content which helps to build readership over time!
But at the end of day it has to be found via some way either it be Google Search or Google Discover. So its like yes create for your existing or potential readers as if Google doesn’t exist but I think what Danny meant is that they want to reward content which is created for readers without doing any specific optimisations for Google (anti SEO content I reckon)
Because I think that work around helpful content which Google started to implement from Aug 2023 and did major changes last year in Sep 2023 is at the end of day is just rewarding content which is anti SEO and is written without considering SEO or as if that content in some way will be shown in a Google surface (Search or Discover).
That’s why I think helpful content (measured by helpulness signal) is an anti SEO signal.
Note – I just like to call it Helpfulness signal which is measuring if some content is helpful or not!
So the best approach is to create content which is helpful for the existing or potential readers assuming that they aren’t going to find that content through Google! Which means just write how you think would be good for your users without doing some specific things which you assume will make Google to think that its better content & they should be ranking it in higher in Search or surface it more in Google Discover!
But again remember Google is even trying to reward content which is written as if Google doesn’t exist?
Again Google is not there yet, from my personal experience of working with publishers who truly creating helpful content & aren’t getting rewarded enough in Search & Discover. But at the same time I can’t say that sites creating helpful content aren’t being rewarded by Google at all because one of my publisher client for this year had hit 100 million clicks from Google Search only! (I posted about this on LinkedIn recently)
And yes I think that Google should send even more probably 200 or 300 million clicks every year to their site because content is amazing & its an incredible effort from their team to create amazing blog posts everyday!
Anyway let’s see what 2025 brings! As recently coined by Google starkly different content and treating it as a “site in a site” is also something which I think aligns with what Danny Sullivan said at the event.
Let me know what you think about this whole topic! Comments are open below! Or you can share your thoughts with me over at X or LinkedIn too!
Also here are some specific questions around this and what I think …..
FAQs
I think just focus on creating helpful content for your existing or potential users and just ignore Google while deciding what to write, how to write it and what to present on the page. Focus on the user because Google is trying to reward content that users like, so if any site is aligned with satisfying users they are best set for the future! And get sustainable traffic from Google!
No! Never ever just create for Google!
Create what you think is right!
Google is a factor but it shouldn’t be the only deciding factor while building a content strategy.
I think so! And even recently Google said that over optimisation drift towards SEO spam! And in guidelines for years now Google has been saying to focus on creating people first content and avoid creating content just for Google.
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