I am Alexis Beaumont, I edit the expert sites credits.fr and cribl.fr on which, with my team, we bring our expertise to help Internet users better choose their credits and micro credit online.
I’m obsessed with SEO and for more than ten years it has been my main activity, with all the complexity that we know.
In September 2023, following the massive adoption of the use of AI, Google is radically changing the rules. The company will call this update to its algorithm the Helpful Content Update (HCU).
For me, this is the most profound change we have experienced in SEO. Of course, there was Penguin or Panda, which SEOs always talk about, but these two systems simply penalized tactical SEO methods which aimed to manipulate the algorithm, in particular through the purchase of links.
At the time, we all had more or less the same content and what made a big difference was more the age of the domain and its links than the content itself.
The arrival of generative AI dates from 2022, its mass adoption from 2023, and, as in many sectors, this arrival has reshuffled the cards of the profession. Google had to adapt its search engine.
The ability offered by generative AI to create content so easily, quickly and without having to deploy significant resources has changed the value of content.
There was a time, producing content, producing more than your competitor on a whole bunch of things was enough to generate traffic. But AI has put an end to this golden era, since producing, publishing and distributing content is no longer a difficulty or a barrier.
The world before ChatGPT
Before the arrival of ChatGPT, Claude, etc., we went to Google to get explanations of all kinds, including theoretical explanations.
To explain, create and synthesize the use of AI will, in my opinion, always be of greater help.
Google therefore had to adapt, and the update of its algorithm in 2023 is a direct response to the increasing use of AI.
Google’s response
To ensure that users will continue to search on Google in such a significant way, and to provide clear value to its users, Google has decided to filter content to only keep sites that provide real, concrete advice and not generic content.
Again, everything is said with the name given to this update “Helpful Content”. All generic, basic content has been eliminated. All site editors, who were content to copy and reformulate already existing information, have been made invisible.
It was the most obvious response to this new use, in my opinion. The only problem is that, in hindsight, the publishers were not prepared for this, and there are ultimately very few sites that have worked on their content with the constant concern to provide a vision, a unique experience that was not that of the neighbor. This is also what explains the absence today of specialized blogs or expert editors.
The use of a search engine as part of research that aims to simply explain or synthesize common content cannot fight against generative AI. This is what makes me say that Google wanted to make its search engine a search engine for humans for humans.
The first battle Google fought was to eliminate all the worthless content that existed before AI arrived on the web, and then to eliminate all the content generated by AIs after it arrived. Sweeping AI from its results reflects this clear desire to highlight human content only.
These two phases were very brutal for all publishers, including us.
Example with a (very!) concrete case
If, for example, you want to start a professional activity, you are hesitating between choosing self-employed status and creating a company.
AI, Claude, ChatGPT and others will very easily tell you which legal form is most suitable for you, depending on who you are, your needs, your ambitions, etc. This is a request for personalized assistance and one that Google cannot fight against, since no site could have foreseen all the situations and complexities specific to each person.
On the other hand, Google will be essential for a key stage, which AI cannot replace: the human experience.
On Google you will find experiences and testimonies from humans who have experienced one or the other of these situations. For this testimony to be stronger than AI, Internet users will expect a personalized story, to feel the experience, what were the frustrations, the limits, the hidden costs, the missed opportunities due to one status or the other. Imagine someone who worked for several years as a self-employed person, then chose to start their own business.
His story will be valuable. Beyond understanding the theoretical differences of the two statuses (which you will understand from an AI), you will have a testimony which will reveal details which you would not have thought of, possibly being able to give you service providers who were more adapted to one or the other of the statuses, the management time, the gains which we could not have thought of. A human who has experienced this situation will be able to transcribe and transmit their frustrations, their worries, their anxieties and their practical satisfactions, with field experience like no AI can do.
This is exactly why I think Google wanted to make its search engine a human-to-human engine, because, whatever we think, an AI will never know how to translate emotions (positive or negative) as well as we know how to do.
No longer need to listen to your neighbor?
Besides, you wanted to ask the AI to build your next trip to the Lofoten Islands, but your neighbor is coming back. It seems that he witnessed a unique sunset, chose to go to these islands in July for a magical reason, found himself in a unique bar, with a bartender who gave his name to a cocktail which is his specialty and which no other does as well as him… And, you know what, he just published an article about his trip… So? Would you rather read it or ask the AI for its opinion on this destination?
