Google's helpful content guidance puts 'main content' first

Google has substantially updated its search document titled 'Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content'. SEO consultant Marie Haynes summarised the update in an article published on Search Engine Journal; the changes below rely on her account.

What does main content mean?

Main content is the content that directly fulfils the purpose of the page: an article, calculator, tool or video. Haynes' advice is to put the core answer or tool at the very top of the page and not to make visitors wade through introductory paragraphs.

Which criteria were added?

According to the article, the guidance highlights four attributes. Effort: raters look at the human work and care behind the content, and mass generation with little curation is devalued. Originality: it asks for perspectives, data or testing not already found in search results. Skill and experience: depending on the topic, it looks for expertise or genuine lived experience. Accuracy: it requires strict factual accuracy and warns against unreviewed AI hallucinations.

What does it say about authorship and tabs?

The guidance treats fake personas, fabricated biographies and misleading bylines as a low-quality signal. Tabs and accordions, meanwhile, are acceptable for keeping a page tidy as long as the content is accessible. Haynes suggests using heatmaps to check that critical answers are really being seen on pages that use tabs.

What should content teams in Türkiye do?

According to Haynes, this document describes the qualities Google's ranking systems aim to reward. That should be read as her interpretation, but it does offer a practical framework for a content audit: the core answer at the top of the page, a real author and real experience visible in every article, and a rethink of generic content that a short AI answer could repeat in full.

• Open your highest-traffic pages and check whether the main content is on the first screen.
• Show authors and contributors with real names and expertise; do not use invented expert identities.
• Add a contribution to every article that is not found elsewhere: your own data, customer experience or test results.
• Verify AI-assisted drafts fact by fact before publishing.