On February 21, 2023, we saw the launch of the first Google update of the year. This is the first update that webmasters and those in the SEO industry will have to contend with and learn from. The focus of this update was the reevaluation of product reviews and was applied to many languages globally; these include English, Spanish, German, French, and Italian, plus more. Product review guidelines provided by documentation have also been updated.

This update has officially rolled out to eleven languages and should take around two weeks to fully roll out and have an effect on search engine results pages. We have also seen that Google has made some clarifications to the existing product review update guidance; Google has updated this document to better reflect what the system is and how it evaluates existing sites. This document should be the first thing to look at and read for any website owner or SEO professional, as it will give unique insight into what Google values.

One common question that is asked is what to do if your site or a client’s site is hit by this update and has seen a negative impact in search rankings. The answer is always to be patient and wait until the update is over; this is at minimum a 2-week wait, but you should also be aware that sometimes Google will provide another update later that may return your site back to its former positions.

The second thing you should do if you suspect you have been hit by a Google update is to focus on Google’s documentation, which should provide you some unique insight into what kind of sites are now deemed of higher value than others. This should enable you to do some detailed analysis on your own site and produce a plan to change your site’s structure or on-page strategy. It may seem difficult and time-consuming to do this, but if you make the changes, then Google will reevaluate your site, and you will see a long-term gain in rankings.

The overall purpose of the product reviews update that was launched was to weed out thin content sites and pages that are simply summaries or copy-and-pasted content rather than product reviews that are based on experience of using the product and conducting some testing and deep research into it; this will no doubt be an issue for affiliate marketers who have built smaller sites that will be hit by the update.

In Google’s guidelines, we can see that they provide examples for site owners that are providing or producing product reviews; these samples include an expert staff member of a retailer who helps shoppers choose between similar products, an independent blogger who promotes products by giving their own personal opinion, and editorial staff at a news or other publishing site.

From these, we can gather that these rules apply to sites from a wide range of industries and also reviews that are written by people at different levels of experience and with different goals in mind. It’s also worth noting that affiliate marketers would likely fall under the umbrella of bloggers, so it seems from this document that Google does not mind affiliate marketers who want to earn a living from recommending products, but they want them to produce real in-depth content that answers searchers’ questions before linking out to a retailer where they earn a commission from sales.

This update seems to affect a wide range of sites and people who have different goals; it is clear that Google is taking into account the reviews that are published by major e-commerce retailers who may have an incentive to push the highest-price products rather than a product that would be best for the customer and meet their price range.

It is clear from this update that the size or brand name of the site or content produced by it simply doesn’t matter; what matters most is that the content produced provides a unique insight into the product itself, and the best way to do that is by owning the product and using it on a regular basis, something that affiliate marketers often don’t do as they mass produce pages that are thin and, in general, just focus on building as many pages as possible in the hopes of getting some revenue from their website.

Google has also clarified that this update will target product review pages on e-commerce sites, blogger sites, and newspaper sites; it is not designed or aimed at user-generated reviews of the product, such as those submitted to major retail websites. This should help to clarify who and what the rules apply to and will prove to be helpful for affiliate marketers who are trying to produce the best quality of review that they can.

For many site owners, they will find that doing a deep-scale analysis using the best SEO tools, such as Ahrefs and SEMrush, will provide them with a deeper level of understanding of what changed in this update, and also taking a look at the official documents provided by Google will enable them to pick up certain hints that Google may drop without outright saying so.

Analysing not only a recent Google update but also individual markets and websites will always give you a larger amount of data, which almost always provides a deeper level of understanding than just looking into your site and your competitors’ sites; focusing on a much broader data set will help you to identify patterns that emerge but also help you understand what strengths and weaknesses your closest competitors may have.

One thing you may notice about this recent update is how the different languages of each website appear to affect the rankings of that page or site; how these sites write and produce content can easily be written into an algorithm to determine if it was produced by a larger-scale business or a personal blog.

Sites that have some firsthand experience of using the product will likely be promoted over generic templated content that provides thin value to search engine results pages. As an example of this, you may find sites that include words such as “I used product xyz for 10 days and found that…” may rank better than sites that are just a generic overview or, even worse, just copy and paste from other sites.

This may suggest to us that Google has found some rather simple differences between what makes a good review and what makes a poor review: sites that are loaded with affiliate links that appear high up the page and poorly written content that doesn’t mention the features of the product or even the weaknesses of the product but instead is just a really long sales pitch for how great it is, which clearly indicates that the person writing the review may be getting commission to only point out the positives.

A great way to think about improving your product pages would be to focus on brands that have a long history of reviewing products even before the internet. Which? magazine is a name that should be first on your list since they have been around a long time and have a good history of providing high-quality reviews that consumers love. It would be an idea to measure your review quality against one of theirs and see what elements of their reviews you like and dislike.

This will help to guide you on what elements should be included in your template when you next review a product; these can be things like unique images, breaking down features and benefits, focusing on a target audience that would benefit from the product, and also talking about how long you used the product for, alternatives to the product, and then including some non-affiliate links to provide alternative sources for the user to purchase from.

Site owners and producers of product reviews should ask themselves what value they are bringing to the table. If your site or product review contains information that the user could have just gotten from the manufacturer’s or retailer’s website, then it’s likely not producing a real need within the market, and you should rethink your strategy to produce unique content that adds more value.

Since people want genuine and trusted reviews, it would seem that Google wants to promote sites that have actually used the product in question firsthand and also sites that have a strong and trusted reputation for quality; the site in question should have a long history of trust with Google and provide real value to the internet as a whole before it starts off pushing affiliate links and uploading generic content.

Site owners should also build a resource box at the end of each review and state who reviewed the product; this will help to build credibility with Google, who prefers to see your sources, and also enables you to give some background on why they are qualified to review the product in question and how long it was tested. Having a real human review the product in question builds credibility with both your site and audience, and a good strategy for this is to hire experts within the field to write for your site exclusively if possible, as this gives you an advantage over the competition.

Based on the latest Google update that launched on April 12th, 2023, we can see that there is now a heavy focus on review content, which will be a critical piece of the puzzle to get right for affiliate marketers and review site owners. This update takes a look at the signals of experience and measures them to rank a site according to defined quality parameters.

Google has published new Search Central documentation that could provide some insights for site owners as to how they are supposed to write review-based content and will give them a glimpse into how Google wants you to format your reviews and what type of content signals it is looking for in order to boost your site’s rankings.

The new reviews documentation seems to focus heavily on the E-E-A-T system, which is a quality framework that is provided as a guide for site owners and was introduced in December of 2022. These new rules are an improved version of the E-A-T system which focused on Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness; these are all traits that are deemed worthy of an increase in rankings within Google’s measuring system.

The additional E that has been added and now makes up E-E-A-T stands for experience. This has provided much speculation that “hands-on” reviews produced by reviewers who have actually purchased and used the product may be deemed of much higher value and cause a rankings increase.

We can still only speculate why this change may have taken place, but we can suspect that it may have been due to affiliate marketers promoting products that they haven’t purchased and, in general, producing a massive amount of low-quality review pages that clogged up the search engine result pages with reviews that had no depth or didn’t add any additional value to consumers.

While we may never know how Google works, we can always draw some logical ideas. Results pages that have low-quality reviews are just taking up space and not adding any real insight that the review section of a major retailer couldn’t provide. Instead, your reviews should have some form of unique value and insight that a consumer can’t find on other sites.

The new Google update regarding products has shown us that Google values a wide range of new signals that would indicate experience. These include visual evidence, links, measurements of quality, and even audio. In other words, you can and should use a wide range of mediums to reach the audience and demonstrate in-depth knowledge of the product that is being reviewed.

A site that reviews products should be able to demonstrate that the product has been tested, handled, used on a daily basis, and has some measurement of quality assigned to each of its features. A score out of 10 would be a good example of how to assign quality, and a set number of uses, such as over a 10-day time span, would enable you to clearly see if the product has any negative or positive features rather than a single-time use.

For visual evidence, it would be a good idea to take your own photographs of the products being used rather than just using a stock image or an image taken from a retail site that you might be an affiliate for. Providing your own unique image demonstrates you are willing to provide in-depth unique content that Google wants to see and shows to your site visitors that you actually used the product rather than just summarizing what other reviews have said.

We can see from this update that it has been scaled over multiple languages including English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. This is a major update that affects different languages of the world and in different industries. Each one of these is now going to have to rework the content and reviews in order to boost search rankings.

In March, Google confirmed a core algorithm update which rolled out; we can see from these changes that it will have a large-scale impact for SEOs and website owners who must pay close attention to the new changes and adapt accordingly.

Website owners and SEOs should focus on what matters at the core of Google rather than chasing update after update and reacting to each one. Instead, Google recommends focusing on site metrics, quality content, and optimizing the technical aspects to maintain a strong presence in Google search results.

Focusing on the user is the latest news from Google, and sites that focus on how best to help the user will be at the forefront of search results in the future, so now is the time to make a transition towards doing that and focus on providing helpful content so you no longer need to worry about the impact of future updates on your website’s rankings.

Google has a long series of history with regards to core updates and shaking up the search results. It’s important during these update times that you are focusing on the long term rather than assuming the worst. Sites will be shuffled around in the search results pages until the update is completed, and even then we may see some turning back of the results. As always, be patient and focus on the long term.

Each update provides some new insight into how Google thinks about search results and how different websites are evaluated. It’s becoming very clear that Google is more than willing to adapt to new rules and a new way of thinking about how best to serve the results that consumers value. This means that SEO professionals and website owners must take a look at the documentation and also experiment to see the best way to optimize and build a website.

Based upon past updates, we can see that you need to be very patient when it comes to Google updates. It can take many weeks for an update rollout to be completed, and during that time the crawlers will index and reassess your website and see if your website contains quality content that adds value to the market.

Tracking your numbers is a great way to keep a tight focus on what could be improved on your website. This will likely require some software and regular tracking of rankings to see an area you should focus on improving in. Measuring your metrics after each update will show you the area that was targeted and how you could improve. Reading over the Google documentation is a good idea to get a peek behind the curtain at what is now valuable.

Creating valuable content for users of your site is by far the best long-term strategy to implement. It will allow you to build a database of knowledge that can be linked to by other sites but also provide a valuable resource for users of your site, which can lead to better on-page metrics such as time on site and more. Adding unique content that is not found on other sites within your industry is a great way to start building a brand name.

The last long-term strategy that always pays off is to focus on your site’s technical aspects. This includes optimizing for things such as site speed, mobile friendliness, helping to get pages indexed in other search engines, and many more. Building a clean website that loads quickly and is well designed and functions on a wide range of devices will help with Google rankings in the long term.

We learn brand new things about what Google is looking for after each core update. It’s vitally important that if you are involved in the SEO industry or own a website that gets search engine traffic that you should focus on the things that really matter, which is the long-term strategies that keep both Google and site visitors happy.

If you focus on building out a quality website that provides value to the web and also links out to great resources that could help your site visitors, then you will notice your site gaining ground. There are no shortcuts to ranking well, but getting more content on your site is always a great idea; it helps the internet and the searcher find more information without needing to visit multiple sites.

When you update your site with new and fresh content, you signal to Google and other search engines that you are a great brand that focuses on current events and can adapt to new market information. Becoming the first to market with new information can help you gain an edge on the competition, but another route you could take is to create a unique piece of content that is not found anywhere else online. This helps to create separation of your brand in the mind of both search engines and website visitors, which can prove profitable in the long run.

Overall, with core updates, the recommended advice is always the same, which is to focus on providing long-term value to both search engines and website visitors. Create the type of content that you want to read, create new formats for information such as videos or audio, be the first to market with a new piece of information, or even go back to the drawing board and create a totally unique piece of information that provides new insights and adds value to the web.

Learning how SEO works for a service area vs a more traditional brick-and-mortar business is a critical thing to understand in 2026 and beyond. Hyperlocal searches are a great way to catch different local customers who may search from within your area and use different keyword variations like postcodes, area names, and even local phone extensions. Learning how to go beyond just a local keyword can give you some brand-new keywords to target.

Learning how to target your local service area or the area where your brick-and-mortar business is based can lead to a brand new way of learning about your customers and how they find you; this could lead to a totally new strategy that could allow you to completely dominate your local area by getting data that your competition does not have and also gathering critical feedback from paying customers.

Your website is absolutely critical if you are a small business with only one location; these businesses tend to be small, and as a result, they tend to have extreme focus on a local market, and these clients will likely have a very small marketing budget. Much of their marketing will be done online, such as creating a brand new website and using SEO techniques to rank it at the top.

There are many differences between a local marketing plan and a plan for service area businesses. The main thing to understand is that a local business that requires a customer to visit them has a limited area with which to target. A service area business (called an SAB) is one that can operate in multiple areas by visiting other businesses or customers. A good example of a service area business would be mobile laptop repair; they tend to do home visits so they can cover a wider area, which may include being able to visit multiple towns or cities.

Another great example of an SAB is digital marketing services. These companies can work remotely, so clients don’t need to live in any area, as the work can be conducted online from anywhere in the country or even the world. This means the marketing and SEO efforts for these businesses need a completely different strategy.

One of the ways that SABs can create a new strategy is to create a brand new page for each location that you service. You can also do this for multiple physical location businesses such as franchises. Some of the information you want to include are details such as local testimonials, local business hours, services available for that location, local contact numbers and email addresses, physical addresses, and perhaps some information about the city or town itself.

Another idea you want to implement is to include a Google Map for the exact location, and also, thinking about questions that customers may have before they order, you could also include any information, such as pictures of the location itself, which builds some credibility and will enable your site visitors to spot the building quickly and easily if they wish to pay you a visit.

Another piece of advice you want to follow is not to become overly aggressive with optimising; having a unique page for every single postcode or area name is way too much and will likely mean you are seen as a spam site by Google and other engines. Instead of doing this, you want to create a local page, such as your city or town name, and then include some area names or postcodes at the bottom of the page in bold; this will help you to rank for those terms without needing to create a separate page for each location you want to target.

When you build out a location-based page and want to create some unique tailored content, then you should think about how to craft some unique content that is hyper-local while not being spammy. An example of this might be a local hotel which creates a page about your town. When thinking about content ideas for this page, what you should do is come up with some ideas about why visitors staying in your hotel might be there. Some examples might include how far away your hotel is from a local bus or train station, how far away local restaurants are, or how quickly a taxi can turn up if they need to make an important meeting.

Another great way to address these issues is to give your email address or guide site visitors to an ‘Ask a Question’ page. This page can then be used to gather information which you can then answer and add onto the content of your page. This will give you some unique content that visitors will enjoy because it saves them needing to make a phone call but also answers any anxieties they might be having before they use your business.

One of the best things you can do before you launch your website is have a document that contains any information that you can think of, and make sure you fill this out in detail so that you can just copy and paste the details or even provide this as a standalone PDF page that is on your website, which can then be printed off with ease. Try to shrink the details down to only 1 page, as many people don’t like having to print large documents.

This document can then be easily shared among others who can email it or put it into Dropbox or paste it into Google Docs. This makes information very easy to share across multiple people and also keeps your details handy, which can then be used to fill in your Google business profile or even for other local citation sites such as Yell, Cylex, and Thompson Local. These are major UK sites that drive a lot of traffic and customers to you if you have a local company.

In terms of what information you should include in this document, you can get some ideas below, but make sure you add more to it if you think of any more. Additionally, always make sure you update these details if anything changes; you will be at great risk of losing business if your phone number or email is out of date.

**Business Information to include:**

Business Name
Full Street Address
Phone Number
Email Address
Business Website Address
Company Logo
Opening Hours
Business Type
Service Area(s)
Services Available
Price Ranges
Map Coordinates (For GPS)
Social Media Account Addresses
Payment options available

Building out a hyper-local and targeted page is one of the easiest but most overlooked strategies when it comes to local SEO. Your goal should always be to build the most amount of trust and answer as many questions as you can for the site visitor. Many people these days hate having to use the phone to ask a question, as they assume it will take a very long time or even that they won’t be able to get a reply since it’s outside of business hours.

One way to build comfort and trust with them is to understand some of the reasons they might be visiting you. This is where segmenting down your customers is a good idea. For the hotel example, you might find that so many of your hotel visitors are visiting from out of town to see a football match, so be sure to include that in your web copy. If it’s a major game, why not offer a special deal if they book within 24 hours or figure out some way to get them to call you right now rather than putting it off, this is a great way to create urgency.

Your copy should speak to them and understand their frustrations. Someone searching for an emergency plumber is likely going to be needing one to come out urgently, so make sure you push them to call you up rather than email them. Give them a discount if they call within the next 15 minutes, which makes them more likely to stop searching and just commit to doing business with you now.

If you have a service-based business, then why not build out a staff profile page so people can see who they are going to meet beforehand and get to know a little more about them. Your ‘About Us’ page is also very important, as people will use it to figure out your brand name and if they can trust you when they come to visit you.

Another thing to consider is that many people travel to visit a location these days. Social media sites like TikTok and YouTube actually cause people to travel hundreds of miles to visit something that was recommended to them by an influencer, and because they don’t mind travelling, some of them have no problem coming from miles away. There is no such thing as a local customer anymore thanks to the viral ability of the internet.

You could take advantage of this if you know there is a popular local city outside of your area; for example, if you target your local town, then you will pick up those searches, but if you target “near me” searches, then you could expand your search further. It’s a good idea to include in your site’s copy some of the city or town names that are within 20 miles of you; including in your copy that you are based in Hartlepool but are “within touch distance of Newcastle” will open you up to far more potential visitors and also allow you to target some new keywords for your SEO efforts.