Since the introduction of Google’s Helpful Content Update, nearly 100% of industries worldwide have seen their websites' traffic negatively affected by algorithm penalties, with an average drop of 5-18% in traffic between 2022 and 2025, according to Semrush.
Okay, so you know what the Google algorithm is and that it affects your site, but how do the updates work and affect your site’s content performance? We'll unpack this all for you and share our own experience with helping our partner bounce back.
How do Google Algorithm Penalties Work?
According to Google for Developers, the Helpful Content Update was created in 2022 to demote ‘low-value’ content on Google. This was done in an attempt to avoid spammy websites appearing on the first results pages and give users the best possible experience.
However, in 2024, the March Core Update evolved to operate from a blend of signals that use multiple ranking systems to determine whether content is helpful or not, avoiding classifying everything on a site-wide basis.
The effects of core updates will become apparent if the algorithm detects low-quality (or unhelpful) content, and the effects of a spam update will show up if the algorithm finds SEO practices on your site that it believes are harmful.
A new spam policy was also released, clamping down on what Google calls “parasite SEO,” which is a term used for when established websites use their clout to compete for high-ranking keywords, effectively levelling the playing field for less-established sites.
The first step is to determine whether it is really a Google algorithm penalty or simply a general drop due to the release of a new core update.
The effects on your website in the case of the second category come down to two further subdivisions on these ‘penalties’ (not to be confused with a major manual penalty).
The effects of core updates will become apparent if the algorithm detects low-quality (or unhelpful) content, and the effects of a spam update will show up if the algorithm finds SEO practices on your site that it believes are harmful, such as link schemes or site reputation abuse.
What Are the Signs?
There are some telltale signs that your website has been penalized by the Google algorithm (as opposed to just experiencing a drop in traffic).
Certain industries have been more affected than others by these most recent penalty trends. Some of the patterns we have observed include:
Q: But I thought it was only certain content that gets penalised…
A: Google has increased its focus on site-wide penalties rather than page-level issues.
Although you should focus on creating helpful content on an article-by-article basis, you will also be given the benefit of the doubt for having a handful of salesy or unoriginal content, as Google takes the trustworthiness of your entire site into account.
To reiterate, the algorithm is looking for:
For this reason, we recommend boosting your credibility by putting more effort into the quality of your overall content to avoid any penalties.
Should Our Site Be Wary of AI Content?
The short answer is yes – but the long answer is that it’s complicated.
While Google does not seem to mind the creation of content using AI, it does target what it calls ‘scaled content', which is classified as the release of mass, unoriginal content. This aims to clamp down on the publication of clickbait or spammy articles in large numbers by AI or human creators.
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Our Experience with Our Partner
There are usually some tell-tale signs that the content on your site has been affected by a Google algorithm penalty. This normally includes:
Bonus Tip: Tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and GSC’s performance report can help you understand how core updates align with the timing of your site’s analytics.
In working with our partner, we experienced a sudden drop in traffic. This was after a period of consistently high traffic volumes, leading us to believe that a penalty was applied to the site overall.
While many of the articles on the blog were helpful how-to guides or PDF book reviews, we needed to go deeper into what Google would classify as trustworthy or helpful content.
Our First Move: Conduct an Audit
We conducted an audit of the blog’s existing content, which consisted of:
The Follow-Up: Redirect or Unlink
While the book review articles were popular with users who were interested in using the reader to view and annotate e-publications, they did not 100% align with the most important aspects of the software. For this reason, we decided to remove many of these articles to better serve helpful tips to the site’s users.
The next step we took was to redirect some of the template pages that were not generating any traffic, indicating to us that they were not of sufficient importance to users who needed to use our partner’s software to fill in forms and more.
Finishing Off: New Content
Lastly, we introduced some new content in the form of longer statistics articles to encourage more organic links to the website. This included more research from peer-reviewed articles and the inclusion of expert opinions and data.
In terms of creating new content or optimizing existing articles, our team at Empact Partners made sure to encourage longer how-to articles with more detailed tips and product information for users to benefit from.
But why does this matter?
You may think that after having been penalized for trying to rank, it's not worth investing more time in new content, especially with search engines gleaning information through AI.
Well, according to Google, proper SEO is still very much alive:
We particularly relied on our expertise with Reddit marketing to create a new channel of traffic with users who are interested in comparing software and learning more about the best ways to use it.
All of these efforts from our team resulted in a steady increase in organic traffic, ultimately allowing the site to regain traffic with the next update.
How to Recover from a Google Algorithm Penalty
Recovering from a Google algorithm penalty is possible! BUT, this does take some time.
If the changes to your site’s performance fall under the first category of a penalty, you should read the Manual Actions Report issued to you to remove or repair the content that has violated Google’s algorithm parameters. You can keep track of these changes and then submit a request to Google Search Console to have the penalty reconsidered.
Our top advice for those looking to recover from a site-wide penalty is to remember that Google is looking for helpful content.
However, if, like in the case study outlined above for our partner, you are dealing with changes to performance as a result of a Google Core or Spam Update, you should take another look at your content.
Here is our mini action plan to get you started:
Remember, it’s important to provide the content that you would want to read and use yourself.
Prepare Your Site for Future Compliance
Using what we learned from our partner, you can implement these strategies to keep your content as relevant as possible.
According to Google Developers, your team should:
Curious to learn more about curating your site's content for Google?
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