Since Google officially updated its docs on creating Helpful Content, lots of folks are talking about "Effort" (along with scaled content + fake author profiles - good!) Google’s definition of Effort isn’t what most people think Effort ≠ work In the age of low-effort, scaled AI content getting algorithmically decimated, understanding “high-effort” is increasingly relevant to brands. Most interestingly, the Google API leak exposed two data points that specifically reference Effort scoring: 1) contentEffort - LLM-based effort estimation for article pages 2) ugcDiscussionEffortScore - UGC page quality signals Effort is not how much work you actually put into a page. It’s more about the evidence of useful work that ends up on the final page. High-effort pages typically contain at least some elements that AI or automation can’t easily replicate, such as original facts (gained through your own experience) and unique perspectives/opinions. I put all of this in a Substack recently, along with a template for auditing Content Effort