Summer Google Core Updates: A Cruel “SEO” Summer

Quick Summary: When Google updates the search ranking algorithm, your website traffic can increase or decrease in the search results. That's normal.

The song Cruel Summer by Bananarama pops in my head when thinking about everything going on in the SEO world this summer, with Google Core Update after Google Core Update!

Google released two major SEO Core updates back-to-back. The first update (Search Engine Land) was released in June, and the second update (Search Engine Land) just finished rolling out the second week of July. 

The Impacts of the Updates Continue

Since the rollout finished, we are still in the early stages, so it may take a while to see the full impact. However, from what SEO’s are currently noticing, Google docked thin content pages, spammy and non-relevant directories, and oddly, car news websites, self-development pages, and buying guides.

The domains that benefited from the update seem to have been large websites with decreasing visibility over the years. Google’s June update could have given too much weight to traditional SEO factors, such as domain age and backlinks, which likely recovered in the following July update. Therefore, if the June algorithm update negatively impacted you, then your rankings could reverse in July.

Google advised that there’s nothing you can do to fix your site if you see a decrease in traffic after the core update because it doesn’t mean your website has any significant flaws, but because they are changing how the systems evaluate content overall.

Expect Fluctuations in Your Website Traffic & Rankings

When Google updates the search ranking algorithm, your website traffic can increase or decrease in the search results. It’s normal to see fluctuations in your analytics after an update depending on how your website scores on the new ranking factors. However, websites that concentrate on providing a high-quality experience for users shouldn’t worry about algorithm updates. If your website has a good user experience and great content, pages may drop some traffic in algorithm updates. Still, overall the site will typically gain traffic afterward in most situations. 

The web is constantly evolving and changing, so Google has to improve search results to stay competitive continuously. “Delivering great results at this type of scale and complexity requires many different systems, and we’re always looking for ways to improve these systems so we can display the most useful results possible,” said Google.

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