5 Google Updates that Debunked SEO Myths in 2022

Intro

SEO is an ever-changing discipline. Search engine algorithms are constantly evolving, and best practices can only last so long before they belong saturated. This means that SEO professionals need to be aware of new trends and technologies so that their strategies can be adapted to meet the changing demands of both users and search engine algorithms.

2022 was an interesting year for SEO. This year, Google has made many official and not-so-official announcements that changed the SEO game. And as Google continues to develop new releases, it’s important to stay updated.

In this article, we’ll share a list of the most relevant 2022 Google updates and recommendations. And especially, we’ll take a look at how they go against what we thought we knew about SEO.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

5 Google Updates that Bust Common SEO Myths

In this section, we’ll cover:

• Why Google doesn’t recommend disavowing “low-quality” backlinks
• Google’s helpful content update
• 5 Google updates affecting mobile searches
• Why Google says that noindex meta tags can cause problems
• Why links may have less impact on SEO than before

Disavowing “Low-Quality” Backlinks Is a Bad Idea

Backlinks are links from other websites that link to a page on your website. They’re useful because:

• They can increase your traffic and visibility
• They let Google know that you’re an authoritative source of information

Good backlinks can positively impact your SERP positioning. But bad backlinks can have the exact opposite effect. So, it makes sense to disavow bad backlinks… right?

It's been a while since Google introduced its link disavowal tool. But there are still a lot of questions about it. This year, we learned about its correct use from Google's own John Mueller. He clarified questions about the links flagged by the tool.

Before the release of the Penguin algorithm (one of Google’s algorithm updates), there was a crazy period of buying and selling links. The Penguin algorithm caused millions of websites to drop their rankings, which resulted in tons of webmasters trying to undo the damage of low-quality backlinks.

As there were so many link removal requests, at the end of 2012, Google launched the link disavow tool, to help webmasters to disavow spam links.

This year, in response to a question about disavowing links to a domain property, Mueller advised on how to use the tool correctly.

We now know from Mueller that:

• If you have domain-level verification in place, you can verify the prefix level without additional tokens
• Disavowing random links that look weird or that a tool has flagged isn't a good idea
• Disavowals are for when you've paid for links and can't get them taken down

Keep in mind that, although useful, third-party backlink checkers do not necessarily represent how Google ranks and uses links.

Google Helpful Content Update

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Google’s Helpful Content Update may have been the most significant SEO news this year and it has caused a lot of ink to spill in the SEO world.

In short, Google’s Helpful Content Update focuses on rewarding websites that provide helpful and informative content to users, while punishing websites that are outdated or contain low-quality content.

What’s new in Google’s Helpful Content Update is that it especially punished publishing AI-generated material. The thing is, when looking at this update’s impact so far, we find out that Google has only penalized extremely blatant junk sites.

Companies that used AI as the foundation of their content but always added a human touch were not affected by the content update. They now know they are on the right path.

There's no reason to completely avoid AI content, not at all.

You should instead:

• Identify your target audience and niche down
• Keep in mind that content goals are more important than keywords
• Don't rely on AI for everything
• Put your stamp on your content, always add a human touch

The content that has been most affected by Google's new update is:

• Completely AI-generated
• Unoriginal
• Not optimized for readability or scannability

In other words, using AI tools doesn't make content bad. Google is only punishing repetitive, extremely low-value content.

Google Announces 5 Mobile Search Changes

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At Google's Search On conference last September, one of the biggest Google SEO news of the year was announced: There will be 5 major changes to how mobile searches work.

That’s when Google's mobile search results got more visual, with a focus on images and videos, and providing shortcuts without typing a traditional search query.

The SEO news shared back then included:

• Google search shortcuts. Today you can find products by uploading screenshots, translate texts with Google Lens, and even find songs by humming them.
• Results in the search bar. Google started to fill in suggested results, before submitting the query, while typing in the search bar.
• Refined query results. Google made it easier to find relevant results by showing query refinements, giving you ideas on narrowing down your search.
• **Google Web Stories. **Google has made mobile search more visual with further integration of Google Web Stories, accessing visual stories and short videos.
• Video, images, and text combined. Today you don’t have to switch between Web, Images, and Video tabs: Google shows it all on the first page of mobile search results.

Noindex Meta Tags Can Cause Problems

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No-index tags are HTML tags that signal to search engine bots when not to index a page. They are commonly used to prevent low-value or administrative pages from being shown in the SERPs.

This year, John Mueller also commented on using a noindex meta tag on out-of-stock product pages. In fact, John explained how that type of use could throw Google off.

The question John Mueller answered came from a publisher. The publisher updated the noindex meta tag to "index" when the product became available again. But when she changed the noindex tag to index, so that Google would start showing the page in search results, the meta robots tag didn't work.

Mueller shared his insights into how Google handles the noindex meta tag.

According to Mueller:

• The fluctuation between indexed and non-indexed can throw Google off.
• When Google sees a page that hasn't been indexed for a while they assume it's a 404. Google doesn't crawl these pages as often anymore because it sees them as noindex, regardless of what you submit in your site map.
• It's counterproductive to fluctuate with the noindex meta if you want those pages indexed eventually.

As a result of this Google update, we discovered how it handles robots noindex meta tags: pretty much the same way it handles 404s.

Since then, we know the robots noindex tag should be used for pages publishers don't ever want to be indexed.

Links Have Less Impact Than Before

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“Backlinks no longer matter as much as before as a ranking signal”. That was a piece of Google SEO news that moved the SEO world in 2022.

Ever since the dawn of Google, links and anchor text signals made it stand out. And SEO used to be just about optimizing titles, headings, and content. But when links became key, whole industries and reciprocal link-building techniques emerged. Namely:

• Web directories
• Link brokers
• Reciprocal linkbuilding
• Comment spamming
• Forum spam

Those practices were extremely popular until the Penguin algorithm update.

This year, in a Google SEO office hours video, a viewer asked:

Why does Google keep using backlinks as a ranking factor if link-building campaigns are not allowed? Why can't Google find other ranking factors that can't be easily manipulated like backlinks?"

And Google revealed that backlinks don't have as much impact as they did when Google Search first started many years ago.

So yes, links have less impact than when Google launched, mainly because fewer types of links affect rankings (like directory links, and paid links).

Now the question is, what will SEOs do from now on?

A combination of high-quality, intent-based content production and properly leveraged distribution channels may be the answer.

Key Takeaways

In this post, we shared 5 Google updates that are leading SEOs to question the strategies they used to swear by.

With these changes in mind, we recommend:

• Focusing on building quality backlinks to truly relevant platforms
• Adopting a “quality over quantity” approach to content creation
• Using AI as a tool, not as a way to replace human writers
• Optimizing for search
• Using no-index tags carefully and creating amazing fallback pages

Happy ranking!