September 2023: Google’s helpful content update and the arrival of Google-Extended
Covers September 2023. Part of our search timeline: a month-by-month look at the changes that shaped SEO, AI search, paid ads and social media, written in November 2026 for local businesses with the benefit of hindsight.
Quick answer: September 2023 brought a major helpful content update from Google, which knocked many content-heavy websites, along with Google-Extended, a robots.txt token for deciding whether your pages can be used to help train Google’s AI models. Website owners suddenly had two things to weigh up: their rankings, and how AI might use their content.
This timeline entry, written in November 2026, revisits September 2023. For a trades business with a blog full of thin “tips” posts written mainly to attract clicks, it is a month worth understanding.
Two changes from Google in September 2023
The helpful content update took two weeks to roll out and came with revised guidance, including advice on hosting content from third parties. Alongside it, Google-Extended gave publishers a way to keep their pages from being used to make Bard and Vertex AI better, with no effect on how they appeared in Search.
The impact on UK websites
A number of UK sites lost a lot of traffic in the update. Google-Extended handed businesses a decision to make about AI training, although it did not give them any control over the AI features shown in Search.
What local businesses should do now
- Look over pages written mainly to pull in traffic rather than to help your customers, such as generic DIY articles unrelated to the jobs you actually do.
- Choose your stance on AI training crawlers and update robots.txt to match.
- Bear in mind that Google-Extended has no effect on ordinary Google Search or on AI Overviews.
Frequently asked questions
What is Google-Extended for?
It decides whether your pages can be used for training Gemini and for some grounding. Your Search rankings are not affected by it.
Have sites recovered from the helpful content update?
Some have, by raising the quality of their content over time. Since 2024 the helpful content system has been folded into Google’s core ranking systems.
Sources and further reading
Want help with this? We can review your website content and your AI crawler settings so both work for your business. See our AI search and GEO service, or Get in touch.
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