What Does Google Want? Here’s What I Think (You're NOT Going to Like it)

Hey everyone,

Firstly, I have completely stripped this blog post back bare.

There’s no “funnies” (sorry), no images (I might add a few to break up the text now, Hahahaha!), just pure written content.

For those who really mean it when they say, “It’s too long, I can’t be bothered to read it”, LEAVE NOW, there’s no point in you reading this, I wish you luck in your future endeavours.

For those who are extremely new to this business, LEAVE NOW (LOL. not in a horrible way you understand), carry on following the initial HUBS training, you need to learn more about your website and creating content FIRST.

For those who’ve been around a while, please read, but my apologies for not making my blog post “attractive”, I just wanted to get this information out there.

Okay, what follows is merely MY OPINION.

Plus, be prepared for a “brain dump”... there’s no structure to this blog post AT ALL, Hahahahahahahaha, I’m just “journalling” what’s on my mind.

However, as I’ve always said, Google leaves CLUES, and in truth, they have left MANY, MANY clues since around April 2021 as to “what they want”.

I’m going to try to break this down in very simple language, so I will sort of “make up” some things for learning purposes, but the principles remain true.

So, here goes!

Google ALGORITHM

Firstly, I think it’s important to establish what the word ALGORITHM actually means.

An algorithm can best be described as:

“An algorithm is a set of commands that must be followed for a computer to perform calculations or other problem-solving operations. According to its formal definition, an algorithm is a finite set of instructions carried out in a specific order to perform a particular task.”

What this means is there are HUMAN QUALITY TESTERS at Google who FEED information into a COMPUTER.

Google then learns from the information provided and it is from this information that the Google ALGORITHM makes decisions.

Here’s something to consider…

The Helpful Content Update and the Helpful Content Writing Guidelines THAT YOU HAVE ACCESS TO

The “Google Algorithm” STILL hasn’t “got it”.

Currently, these HUMAN QUALITY TESTERS are feeding COMMANDS into the Google COMPUTER and Google is making “calculations” based on this information.

In other words, real HUMAN Google employees are MANUALLY REVIEWING websites and then placing their findings into the GOOGLE COMPUTER and then TELLING THE GOOGLE COMPUTER what is “helpful” and what is “unhelpful”.

This will continue to happen until the “Google Computer” FULLY UNDERSTANDS THESE COMMANDS that they can go and do it for themselves (WITHOUT Human Interaction).

The GOOGLE COMPUTER (algorithm) is STILL CURRENTLY learning what the HELPFUL CONTENT GUIDELINES are.

And this is why the Google results CURRENTLY (it won’t last) seem so skewed.

Google is Evolving

Do you want to know what I actually think about all these recent Google changes?

TWO THINGS (number two is the next section)

Firstly, Google is trying to rank based on WHAT THEY THINK PEOPLE LIKE.

A great example of this is another GOOGLE-OWNED platform, namely YouTube.

Sure, YouTube requires “keyword research”, but those who do really well on YouTube are finding that people LIKE their content.

How does the YouTube algorithm decide whether people LIKE videos?

Because they leave comments, thumbs up, subscribe to channels, share videos to other channels.

Basically, if you’re doing well on YouTube it’s because you are “popular”.

The exact same can be said for most social media channels.

The more “popular” and “liked” you are, the MORE YOUR CONTENT WILL BE SHOWN TO MORE PEOPLE (the “algorithm” changes for YOU based on YOUR POPULARITY).

The Google Search Engine is “TRYING” to do the same currently (it hasn’t got it right at the moment, but it is still being “fed information by human quality testers”).

So, how has Google decided CURRENTLY what is “liked” and “popular”?

AUTHORITY & HUMAN INTERACTION.

At this current moment in time the Google “computer” is trying to be more like YouTube and more like “Social Media”, but they are choosing what is “liked more” and “popular” based on BACKLINKS (other people linking to your website is almost a “vote of popularity”).

Furthermore, social media, Q&A sites, forums, and especially Reddit and Quora are ranking because HUMAN INTERACTION is going on.

(by the way, this shows that COMMENTS on your posts are even more important than ever before, sure it is kind of a “fake it till you make it” scenario with Site Comments, and if we can finally get the “crap AI comments” under control, this could be your BEST FRIEND over the coming months).

This DOESN’T mean that these are the “best results” currently ranking (as most of you will already know), it simply means that while the Google Algorithm is learning the helpful content guidelines they view backlinks and lots of comments and human interaction as a sign that PEOPLE LIKE THE CONTENT (which is true to some extent, but obviously this can also be MANIPULATED).

Helpful Content = People “Like” Your Content

As I say, I have a feeling the search results will change dramatically over the coming year, as the “Google Computer” starts to better understand WHAT PEOPLE LIKE.

I don’t have a crystal ball, but I reckon the first “big change” may come about in March, plus for the last couple of years, Helpful Content Updates and SPAM updates have been released around August/September time.

(Essentially, a long-term view is you are currently writing content THAT WON’T RANK, but hopefully will in August/September)

(Plus, those who are “ranking” new website content at the moment, ARE YOU REALLY? Are you ranking for REAL search terms that people would ACTUALLY TYPE INTO Google? Are you seeing “things happening” inside Google Search Console, such as Increased impressions and clicks to your “ranking article”? Remember, “ranking” for something that no-one searches for isn’t a “real ranking”. I could write an article titled, “How to Murder Your Children & Get Away With it”, I then check that “keyword” 10 minutes after I’m indexed, of course I’m NUMBER ONE, ain’t no-one else in the world written that article, everything else in Google is what THEY DEEM relevant, and of course, NO-ONE (hopefully) will actually search for that term. So “rankings” only count if you’re getting impressions, and more importantly, CLICKS, for that keyword).

Eventually, Google will “reward” content that PEOPLE LIKE, but they need to find a better way to determine this than they currently have.

Why is Google Doing This?

Are you ready for it?

You’re not going to like it…

Personally, I think ever since that first “Product Review” Google Algorithm Update came about in April 2021 Google has been targeting

AFFILIATE MARKETING NICHE WEBSITES

Realistically, the “traditional way” of creating affiliate marketing niche websites is dead.

In fact, even what I’ve taught you only about 3 years ago is also DEAD.

What I mean by this is you can no longer start a website and JUST add articles and NOT do anything else.

What I mean by this is that you can no longer just rewrite an affiliate sales page features and benefits and expect to rank and make sales.

What I mean by this is that the days of adding an article a day to your website and doing NOTHING ELSE are DEAD.

(if you are currently REALLY RANKING and making money from “Just a niche affiliate marketing website” you either already have some AUTHORITY←– think about how long all the current PP+ trainers/”Super Affiliates” have had their websites online, or… it won’t last forever)

Look, we had the “Your Money or Your Life” Google Algorithm changes a few years ago.

Basically, Google had had enough of “fake affiliate marketers” promoting “cures for cancer”, “genital enlargement”, “weight loss” pills, “forex trading”, or “stock market investments” WITHOUT any knowledge or experience in these areas.

Anything that could impact the health or financial well-being of a consumer was frowned upon unless promoted by an “expert”.

I’m not saying that you can’t succeed in a YMYL niche, YOU CAN, but it’s going to take you a long time or a HUGE amount of content (on-website and OFF-website) to be viewed as ”trusthworty, experienced, authoritative, expert”.

The exact same can be said of those who are simply starting a website with the sole purpose to just “make money online” by targeting the same keywords as everyone else and then writing product review after product review after product review with nothing PERSONAL to add.

By the way, CURRENTLY the above IS WORKING… BUT only for those producing an avalanche of content.

What many blackhatters are doing, and have done for years, is to create websites like this, smash out about 500 articles per month, they immediately get ranked for 1000s and 1000s of keywords, and this grows for a good few months.

Their “authority” is increased through blackhat backlinking techniques.

It’s poor quality content, it’s poor quality backlinks, but it “works” in the SHORT-TERM.

They earn a lot of money in a short space of time, but THEY KNOW that their website is going to DIE soon when an algorithm update comes about.

And then they start to process all over again.

Do you want me to be completely honest?

A lot of YOU are actually doing this WITHOUT REALISING IT, but on much smaller scale, e.g. 1 article a day, BECAUSE OF AI CONTENT.

Why do you think so many new websites that were created after around September 2023 saw an initial great spike and then suddenly died in terms of ANY rankings, impressions, and clicks? (forget “sandboxes”, forget “ranking fluctuations”)

Why do you think so many people are seeing “Crawled - Not Yet Indexed” in Google Search Console? (This is simply Google saying, “I’ve found your article, I’ve even crawled it, but I’m not going to include it in my index of articles because I don’t think it’s good enough).

Why do think that so many people are starting to have articles de-indexed and their “indexed articles” in Google Search Console decreases every single week (often a sign that a website may die altogether)?

Why do you think that “Helpful Content” (which the “Google Computer” is still trying to learn) has been spoken about SO MUCH over the last 18 months?

GOOGLE HAS HAD ENOUGH!!

So, What Does Google Actually Want? (At The Moment)

It’s simple really, Google wants to see that you are a REAL COMPANY (they’ve had enough of the niche affiliate marketing website with a few hundred articles and a few hundred product reviews and no other “footprint” online, i.e. I own a website and nothing else).

And of course, “Helpful” in their mind simply means “People Like Your Content”.

Before I get to the “real company” bit, let’s quickly talk about AI-content in terms of people “liking your content”

I’ll tell you what, here’s another way to look at it:

PEOPLE WHO ARE USING AI CORRECTLY, what is the main thing they are doing?

Trying to make AI Content NOT sound like ‘AI Content.

Read that again, it’s important.

Realistically, if you’re using AI how it should be used, you DON’T WANT IT TO READ AS THOUGH IT’S BEEN CREATED BY AI.

I do think this is where “experienced” and “not experienced” comes into this.

Then again, something I mentioned the other day, this will separate the “readers” from the “non-readers”.

Someone who reads regularly will look at “out-of-the-box-AI” and think, “No-one talks like this and it’s so over-the-top it's making me sick” ←—-REMEMBER, Google is trying to rank based on “What People Like”, so how many “readers” around the world are visiting your articles and thinking, “What the hell is this? I’m outta here!”

Something else I want to quickly mention, HIUBS and article ideas.

Do you know how many WA members have recently written the article “Common Mistakes in Affiliate Marketing"

Firstly, this is a terrible keyword to target, you won’t rank!

Secondly, Jay and Eric have created specific webinars around using HUBS and doing PROPER KEYWORD RESEARCH.

Have you watched these?

If not, why not?

I don’t want to cause issues, and I know that this is something that a well-known member spoke about a couple of weeks ago, but currently, those using Bootcamp and HUBS, YOU’RE ALL PRODUCING THE SAME CONTENT (very easy to see when you quickly review 20-30 MMO Wealthy Affiliate produced websites!!)

I’m not seeing much “originality” or “uniqueness”, something else that the “Google computer” is focused on.

What’s the Solution?

If Google CURRENTLY seems to be rewarding “high authority”, “brands”, “companies”, and “human interaction”, then this is what you MUST do.

Wealthy Affiliate speaks about “building a business”.

Guess what?

“Faking it” or otherwise, you must make your “BRAND” look like a REAL BUSINESS.

This also fits in well with the, “You won’t get far by just writing articles, publishing them to your website, and doing NOTHING ELSE”.

Okay, so first things first, a REAL business has a physical address and a contact telephone number.

I’m not going to suggest specific places, but you can Google things like:

“Free virtual telephone number”

“Free virtual office address”

And see what you come up with.

Btw, a lot of the telephone services simply take a message and then email you with the details.

To be honest, you don’t 100% need these, but it does make you look more like a “real business”.

(could you possibly buy a cheap old Nokia phone, and set it up with a voicemail message, buy $10 pay-as-you-go credit, and then use this as a “business telephone number”?)

Next, is BRANDING.

To me, Branding in the online world is simply what you see when you put a “company name” into the Google Search Bar.

One of my favourite “companies” to show this is GRAMMARFLEX

So, go to the Google Search Bar and type in

GRAMMARFLEX

(PLEASE go and do this, go and LOOK FOR YOURSELF)

And then go through all the platforms they are registered at and register there yourself, e.g. TwitterX, Linkedin, Medium, Quora, Substack, StackOverflow, etc.

These are basically social profiles and forum profiles.

Now, profile backlinks are often viewed as “spammy”, but this is simply due to how they are created, and the number of profiles created.

A lot of “old SEO” was focused “more is better”.

So, this led to practices such as “keyword stuffing” and using software to create 10,000+ social and forum profiles.

This is OBVIOUS to Google, it is obvious it has been manipulated, and it is obvious WHY this has been done (trying to get lots of backlinks in a short space of time in order to manipulate Google rankings).

So, my suggestion, open a profile at each of the places that GrammarFlex has and do this MANUALLY (do it yourself, just do one or two a day), and CHANGE your bio, create 3 different bios, and make sure your profile bio is BRANDED.

So, this would look like:

John Smith, Founder, Owner, & Author at mywebsitename .com is a content creator, affiliate marketer, blah, blah, blah.

Basically, have your full name and your url, and then a short explanation of who you are and what you do.

Create 3 DIFFERENT profiles (you can use AI to help you out, just no UNLEASHING please, LOL).

Next..

Once more, a type of backlink that is viewed as “spammy”, but again, this is simply due to the use of software, the “more is better” thinking, and adding links to low-quality, spammy sites.

Furthermore, John Mueller has stated that this type of “backlink” doesn’t really help with SEO, but it can be a source of traffic and it can help to create TRUST.

Plus, if you can find good, active platforms it “may” help a tiny little bit with SEO

Basically, you want to add your website to website directories.

Some examples include Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Yelp, FourSquare, Best of the Web (BOTW), AboutUs, etc.

(this is “Local SEO” so an address and phone number does make you appear more legitimate)

You also want to find NICHE-RELEVANT directories to add your website to.

However, you need to make sure these are NOT spammy and low quality, as many will be.

The best way is to do a niche-related Google search, e.g.

Exercise & Fitness + Website Directories

Once you get a list of names from your Google search take each one individually and type the name of the directory into Google.

Check the “number of results” under the search bar.

Is this a large number? GOOD!

Is it a small number? BAD

Check some of the results in Google for that directory, can you see recent dates on some of the listings, e.g. 2023, 2024 = Still Active = GOOD

Once more, this isn’t about quantity, but simply about “REGISTERING YOUR BUSINESS” in order to increase trust and possibly a trickle of traffic (and of course, you get some backlinks).

Again, 20-30 directories, adding 1-2 per day.

BUT

You really need to study these directories, as shown above, to ensure they are active, have a lot of listings, and are not low quality.

Next… I’ve mentioned that “simply adding articles to a website and doing nothing else” ISN’T going to cut it moving forward.

At the moment, lots of social media, forums, and Q&A sites are ranking in the SERPs, therefore, you need to “promote your website articles” on as many as you can.

If you like writing, then your choices are Medium, Quora, Reddit, Linkedin, and Niche-Related Forums (please adhere to their rules when “promoting” content, basically you need to be “social” before you promote, think about how you feel when someone new joins WA and starts dropping links!!!)

If you are more visual/image/video then promote your content (repurpose your content) on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.

If this seems like a lot of work, remember you are BUILDING A BUSINESS, plus, you don’t have to do everything every single day.

Personally, at this moment in time, it would actually be better to write LESS content, make sure that content is fantastic, and then spend MORE TIME promoting your content.

Plus, don’t forget that when you “promote” your content you’re also getting backlinks to that content.

Admittedly, these aren’t extremely high-quality do-follow backlinks, but every little helps.

Here’s another way to look at it.

If I spent 6 months creating just 50 articles for my site.

I then promote these articles by repurposing them for YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram, Quora, Reddit, Niche-Related Forums, Medium, and Linkedin.

I then follow the GrammarFlex branding as above and I also add my website to relevant, high-quality directories, I can GUARANTEE that this website will be doing MUCH BETTER than a website that has simply added 180 articles to the site in those 6 months and done nothing else.

CURRENTLY, Content is NOT King!

Final Thoughts

Lot to take in right?

And as I say, this is simply my opinion.

However, to me, it’s almost obvious that Google is targeting “insincere one-person businesses who simply want to make some money”.

Additionally, I feel that Google is trying to become more like YouTube, and other social channels, they want to REWARD the content THAT PEOPLE LIKE.

Unfortunately, this is much harder to do in the SERPs than it is via social channels.

And this is why all these high authority websites, with lots of backlinks, are ranking, EVEN WHEN THE CONTENT ISN’T HELPFUL.

Don’t forget the Google “Algorithm” (the Google “Computer”) is still being fed information by HUMAN QUALITY TESTERS, and they haven’t quite got this “Helpful” thing right just yet.

So, I do feel there are a lot of changes coming again this year.

I think the influx of AI content has made this harder, and this is also why poor-quality AI content is CURRENTLY ranking… it won’t last.

Are you now starting to understand why branding, being seen as a “real company”, and having some “authority and trust” is so important?

You’ll notice I haven’t listed many social and forum channels (apart from saying to follow GrammarFlex’s lead), and I’ve only mentioned a few website directories.

Why?

You;'re a REAL BUSINESS OWNER, go and do the research yourself… you can always come back and ask me if what you’ve found is okay, that’s fine, but I want you to start acting like a real business owner.

Thank You For Reading

Partha