He also leads the Google Search team. He announced a timeline for the finalization of the useful content update in September 2023. In fact, the announcement is the same as what Google said when it was first announced, that classifiers are always working to check whether content is useful, and that it takes time to prove this to Google to improve the user experience.
This issue came to the agenda again after a tweet on twitter or x, as it is now called, citing a website as an example, stating that the useful content update was affected but that an improvement had not yet been realized. With the response on this issue, we have obtained the announcement that “a site can recover within 2 weeks after the change is made”.
I don't recall giving a specific timeframe like that. It would be unusual for me to do so, because it's not what we say in our documentation. It's not something I've also said in posts when people ask about this. Apologies if I misspoke or perhaps confused this with something…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 9, 2024
In this regard, Google Developers notes on the useful content update: “How long it takes for a site to perform better if it removes non-useful content depends on how long it takes for sites identified by the system to find the signal applied to them. Our classifier works continuously and may take several months to receive signals about newly launched edits. If it is determined that unhelpful content is not signaling back in the long term, the classification will no longer be valid.”
In the correspondence, a user named Daniel Hart asked whether it is necessary to wait for the next update or whether the period works on a monthly or bimonthly basis, and the response was that our classifiers are always working.