Changes in Google: new perspectives for ranking pages on sites with useless content

Article image Changes in Google: new perspectives for ranking pages on sites with useless content
Article image Changes in Google: new perspectives for ranking pages on sites with useless content
Publication date:17.01.2026
Blog category: Web Technology News

In 2022, Google launched Useful Content Signals (HCU), which was a site-wide ranking system. This meant that if a site was considered useless, it could not rank, regardless of whether some of its pages were useful.

"Our core ranking systems are primarily designed to work at the page level, using a variety of signals and systems to understand the usefulness of individual pages. We have some site-wide signals that are also taken into account."

🚀 Recently, signals related to the Useful Content System were integrated into Google's main ranking algorithm, basically changing them to page-level signals, but with a caveat.

  • 📌 There is no longer a single system for utility. It is now a collection of signals in the main ranking algorithm.
  • 📌 Page-level signals, but there are site-wide signals that can affect overall rankings.
Is it possible that the new useful pages are not ranking due to the influence of site-wide signals?

Yes, some publishers expressed that opinion on Twitter, and John Mueller expressed some hope for it.

Will Google change the utility signal system?

John Mueller indicated that the search engine ranking team is working on how to highlight high-quality pages on sites that may contain strong site-wide negative signals.

Will a site-wide signal change help many sites?

It depends on many factors, including content quality, site structure, competition, and more. It is not always a problem with signals at the level of the entire site.

🚀 However, there is reason to believe that even if this change does happen, it may not be enough to help the many sites that publishers and SEOs believe are affected by site-wide utility signals.

🧩 Conclusion: Changes in Google's ranking algorithm, which will allow individual pages to rank independently of the ranking of the entire site, may not be enough for many sites. It is important to critically assess the quality of your own content and not rely entirely on algorithm changes.
🧠 Own reasoning: Despite potential changes to Google, success in SEO will always depend on providing useful content to users. Regardless of future algorithm changes, our core strategy must remain the same: to create high-quality content that satisfies users' needs.