Last Updated on September 25, 2024 by Admin
As the field of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) constantly evolves, website owners and marketers need to keep abreast of the changes. Undoubtedly, one aspect that can have a major influence on how your site is ranked in Google searches is Google Search Core Updates. These updates, which happen several times a year, significantly affect the search rankings and organic traffic.
A study conducted by SEMrush revealed that some sites lost up to 70% of their organic traffic after significant core updates. That’s a lot more!
Core updates are the strategies Google uses to ensure that the search results are still valuable and related to the user’s expectations. They are not about punishing the websites but about refocusing on how the content is worth and ranked. This way, you will be aware of the updates and be in a position to counter them before they negatively affect your SEO.
So, this is a perfect guide to help you understand all the aspects of what Google Search Core Updates entail.
What are Google Search’s Core Updates?
A Google Search Core Update is a major, comprehensive change to the Google Search system. While core updates are not exceptionally significant and can be easily overseen, they can cause massive changes in search rankings and organic traffic for websites across the internet.
Such updates happen several times a year and aim to enhance the quality of the search results. Their core purpose is to guarantee that Google offers the most relevant, credible, and useful results to users.
Essential updates are not aimed at certain websites or kinds of material. However, they re-educate how Google’s systems perceive content quality universally rather than a specific one. This means that a website might face fluctuation in its ranking not owing to some misdeed it has committed but simply because the content it serves may not be as relevant or valuable to certain search queries as other content.
One must understand that core updates are not like other Google updates that may be designed to address problems like spam or ranking signals like page speed. Core updates are more significant and usually target various features of the search algorithm at once.
True core updates may take days or even weeks to complete once a new version is launched on the market. At this time, you may experience some up-and-down movements with your website rank and visitor traffic. Some of these changes can be short-term and are attributed to Google’s system adaptation, while others could be long-term and indicate how your content’s value is viewed.
Their nature is the first thing that one needs to grasp in an effort to cope with the core updates. This means that you will not see these updates as a punishment for your site or a sign that you did something wrong but as a way of raising the bar to improve the general quality of the search.
How Core Updates Work?
The functioning of Google Search Core Updates is intricate; however, it is crucial to grasp its core concepts to deal with them. Essentially, all these updates are primarily centered on optimizing how Google evaluates content quality and relevance.
Let Google’s algorithm be a critic of a movie. While a critic may change their list of the hundred best movies after a few years, Google similarly revises its methods of website ranking. This reassessment in no way implies that movies (or websites) that lose rank are suddenly bad; it only means that in the present context, other content might be more deserving of high ranks.
Here’s how this process typically unfolds:
- Algorithmic Adjustments: Google makes slight changes to its main algorithm to improve its capability of assessing web content. These changes can range from Natural language processing to user intent understanding to the quality of the content that is to be served.
- Global Implementation: While targeted updates only impact the specific search results, core updates influence all search results at the global level. This means that every website is susceptible to this problem irrespective of the topic or geographical location it covers.
- Content Reassessment: The new algorithm recalculates all documents to which the indexing procedure is applied. This is not about ‘punishing’ ‘bad’ content but about finding the best ‘good’ content pertaining to the particular query.
- Ranking Shifts: This kind of change can lift one website to a higher rank while dragging another to a lower rank. Such changes are the result of the algorithm adapting to changes in the value of content.
One must remember that core updates do not target any particular problem. Losing ranking does not necessarily mean that you have done something wrong with your site. Instead, it could be possible that other content has been considered more relevant or useful for some queries.
The core updates are rather about the constant enhancement of the general search quality.
- They impact all forms of content across all languages
- The effects can be direct, which happens during the initial period of the rollout, or it may be incremental throughout the rollout.
Thus, the question of how to prepare for and address core updates arises. The essence is in creating high-quality, targeted material on a regular basis. Google’s advice is clear: concentrate on giving out the best content you have to offer. This means making content that is both informative and entertaining, and that meets and even exceeds the expectations of the readers.
Please note that you cannot rush for a core update or look for a specific optimization strategy. But that is not the case here; it is about the totality of quality. Ask yourself: Am I giving my viewers something they have not seen before? Is it Authoritative and trustworthy? Is it more user-friendly than other similar pages?
By continually improving your content and focusing on user needs, you’re aligning yourself with Google’s ultimate goal, which allows you to offer the best possible results to the search engine’s users. Using this approach, you will be protected from the impact of core updates and can achieve a long-term victory in the rankings.
History of Google Core Updates
Google Search Core Updates’ history is an exciting story of the development of search technologies. This section will review the major core updates that occurred in the last five years, their timing, effects, and the lessons learned by the SEO community. All the updates affected the US/Pacific zones at all times. So, let us now dive deeper on the updates:
In 2024
Next core update this year is expected in coming weeks.
- August 2024: The Core Update for August 2024 was started on the 15th of August 2024 and ended on the 3rd of September 2024. It affected search results worldwide, fighting against low-quality content that was optimized only for search engines. Further, it improved the rankings for useful content, especially if the website belonged to a small company. The update was based on feedback from content creators and intended to enhance search results’ general relevance and quality. The rollout took 19 days, and although it is still early to tell the full effects, the emphasis was put on incentivizing high-quality content while demoting low-quality pages.
- March 2024: The most recent Core Update was the March 2024 Core Update that took place from March 5th to April 19th and was claimed to be one of the most extensive in the past few years. It was held for 45 days and included crucial adjustments to the helpful content system in Google and spam filters. This update was meant to cut low-quality content by up to 40%, especially content farms and any site that has content created by artificial intelligence with little or no quality. It was realized in different sectors, but mainly in the health sector, financial sector, and business sector, especially the e-commerce sector.
In 2023
- November 2023: The November 2023 Core Update started on November 2, 2023, and ended on November 28, 2023, at 9:21 PM PST, which means it was 25 days and 21 hours long. This update also coincided with a review update, hence extending the volatility period in the search results. There were shifts in the rankings of many sites in the product review niche, including e-commerce and affiliate sites.
- October 2023: The Core Update in October 2023 was the shortest, lasting 13 days and 23 hours from October 5 to October 19. A spam update followed this update, so the change process affected search results intricately. Most web pages involved in link building or had poor-quality content experienced a significant decline in their rankings. As has been seen, the update affected almost all industries, but the news and media industry felt the changes more sharply.
- August 2023: Another significant event was the August 2023 Core Update, which was active between August 22 and September 7, that is, 16 days and 3 hours. The changes greatly affected the rankings in different niches. Low-quality and shallow results saw a massive fall in visibility in the respective sites. The effect was realized in almost every field, but specifically in the sphere of healthcare and fitness.
- March 2023: The March 2023 Core Update was active from March 15 to March 28. Thus, it was active for 13 days and 7 hours. In this update, many sites were greatly affected and shifted in ranking in the search engine results. Some claimed that traffic changes could be as much as 30%. The update was done on a large scale, and its effects were more prominent in the travel and hospitality industry.
In 2022
- September 2022: The most significant Core Update lasted 14 days and occurred in September 2022, from September 12 to September 26. It affected sites in the health, finance, and Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) niches. Many YMYL-related sites experienced shifts in their rankings, which underlines the importance of high-quality content in these vital fields for users.
- May 2022: Lasting for 15 days from May 25 to June 9, 2022, Core Update was said to have a slow release. Some of the sites reported that they had been experiencing oscillations in the ranking for a long time, and some of them even after the official end of the rollout. The effect was rather general, and it involved numerous sites that belonged to different fields.
In 2021
- November 2021: The November 2021 Core Update, which occurred between November 17 and November 30, 2021, for 13 days, impacted searches in different languages and locations. Most of the global websites reported shifts in their standings.
- July 2021: The July 2021 Core Update was released on July 1 and lasted for 11 days, until July 12, and was the second part of a two-part core update in the summer. Combined with the June update, it led to large fluctuations in ranking in many industries. The effect was general but more specific in the retail and e-commerce industries.
- June 2021: The first of two updates in June 2021 was the Core Update, which started on June 2 and ended on June 12, thus taking 10 days. Some websites observed changes in their ranks, though some of these changes were temporary and were later corrected in July. The impact was spread across all niches covered by the development.
In 2020
- December 2020: This Core Update was even more significant, running from December 3 to December 16 (13 days), and many SEOs reported significant ranking shifts. In its wake, it appeared that the update was more inclined to rank websites with high E-A-T signals. The effect was general but most prominent in YMYL sectors.
- May 2020: The May 2020 Core Update, which took place from May 4 to May 18, which is 14 days, occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. A large number of health and medical sites experienced shifts in rankings, which could be attributed to the higher relevance of reliable and correct information during the crisis. Websites that provide information on health and medicine were most affected, followed by news and current events.
- January 2020: The January 2020 Core Update was a relatively fast update that lasted three days, from January 13th to January 16th. Although it was not as dramatic as some of the previous updates, it paved the way for a year of intense algorithm shift. The effect was felt across the board, but not as severely as in the later updates of 2020.
Conclusion
It is crucial to stay updated with the Google Search Core Updates to address and enhance your website’s ranking. These updates aim to improve the quality of the results returned to the user and provide them with the best possible relevant and reliable information. These updates are easy to handle if you concentrate on the quality of the content, the usability of the site, and the compliance with SEO standards.
At AlgoSaga digital marketing agency, we know the tough and competitive environment of Google algorithms and are here to help you succeed. Our team of experts follows these updates closely to give you the information and tools that will help you succeed.