The last two months in Google Land have been one of the most volatile times in the search industry that I can remember. Google has published it Extensive core update in Augustthen a powerful, helpful content update in September, then this Extensive core update in Octoberand also jammed in one Spam update which overlapped with the October core update. Needless to say, it’s been a crazy and wild time for SEOs and website owners. As I have said many times, Welcome to Google Land.
As the updates rolled out, I spoke to countless affected website owners. And during these conversations I find myself explaining the same points and answering the same questions over and over again. That’s why I finally decided to write a post that covers some of the key points that site owners need to understand about major core updates. This is based on my experience helping many companies recover from core updates, which are important algorithm updates that are rolled out multiple times a year. I hope the following information can help site owners who may not be familiar with major core updates, may not understand how they work, how to restore sites, and more.
This is a living document, and I’m sure I’ll add more key points as major core updates evolve over time. Let’s get started (in no particular order).
Site-level quality algorithms:
I’ll start with an extremely important topic that website owners should understand. Google has site-level quality algorithms that can have a big impact on how sites are affected during major core updates. For this reason, there may be massive increases or spikes when major core updates roll out. Google rates sites with comprehensive core updates overall, not just on a URL basis. So don’t miss the forest for the trees… When improving your website, focus on the bigger picture. This is how Google sees it…
The difference between relevance adjustments, intent shifts, and quality issues:
If a website has been negatively impacted by a major core update, it’s important to understand why. I’ve covered this topic many times in my comprehensive core update blog posts and presentations, and I explain it again and again. I actually have a whole post about the difference between relevancy adjustments, intent shifts, and quality issues that site owners should definitely read. To summarize the post: A drop in a major core update is NOT always due to quality issues. This can also involve adjustments in relevance or shifts in intent. If this is the case, quality is not the problem on your end and you can’t really fix it either. It’s simply because your content is no longer as relevant to the specific search query or a different type of website is ranking for that query.
A good example of relevancy adjustments is an article about a celebrity from two or three years ago that was ranking well (and is deleted in a major core update because it is no longer relevant). Intent shifts may eliminate a review site as Google now rates e-commerce sites instead. That’s Google’s fault, not yours. Don’t rush into destroying content or overhauling your entire website until you know the cause of the decline.
To go down this route, I highly recommend creating a delta report to understand the queries and landing pages that most commonly declined due to a major core update. Take a look and determine whether it was a relevancy adjustment, a change in intent, or quality issues. Then act (or not).
“Content is king,” but “quality” is more than just content.
We’ve heard the phrase “Content is King” for SEO over and over again. Content quality is of course crucial, but when it comes to major core updates, it’s about more than just the content. I’ve been saying this since the medieval panda days, when I realized that UX was part of the equation. For example, UX barriers, aggressive, disruptive or misleading advertising, deceptive affiliate setup, annoying pop-ups and interstitials and more.
And if you don’t believe me, listen to Google’s John Mueller. In a 2021 Webmaster Hangout video, John explained that Google is evaluating one Site as a whole with comprehensive core updates. It’s more than just content. It covers UX topics, the advertising situation, the way of presentation, sources and more. This is just another reason why I highly recommend using the “kitchen sink” approach to remodeling. If you focus solely on content and don’t consider the entire user experience, you could still end up in the gray area of Google’s algorithms (and see a negative impact during major core updates).
Thin does not mean short. It’s about the value to the user.
If quality is the issue and you’re concerned with content quality, then understand that “thin” doesn’t mean “short.” There are many examples of shorter content pages that can meet or exceed user expectations. It’s more about the value to the user. Don’t just scrap a bunch of content just because it’s short. Objectively evaluate whether the content can meet or exceed user expectations.
Old does not mean inferior:
Repeat after me. Older content does not mean that content is low quality. There are many websites that trash older content thinking it is thin. That’s not the case, and Google even did it came out recently to emphasize this point again. If older content is of high quality, it can help your website on multiple levels. It might have earned links and mentions over time, it might help with an overall quality rating, and more. This is a particularly important issue for news publishers who may have very old content that no longer receives much traffic. Do not destroy this content if it is of high quality. Only remove it if it is of lower quality or thin (if it cannot meet or exceed the user’s expectations).
Major core updates may impact other Google interfaces (beyond web search):
I notice that some site owners only focus on web search when assessing a decline from major core updates, but there are other Google interfaces that can generate a lot of traffic. For example, Image Search, Video Search, the News tab in Search, Discover, Google News itself, etc. Google has a proven track record of allowing these other interfaces to be affected by major core updates, and that’s exactly what I’ve had over the years observes support for companies that have been severely affected. If other interfaces are important to your business, be sure to check trends for those interfaces as major core updates roll out. For this reason too, you shouldn’t be left on the wrong side of a comprehensive core update.
Recovering from major core updates:
For sites heavily impacted by a major core update, you can do this typically A recovery will only appear with another comprehensive core update. Google has explained this many times, and I’ve seen it many times when supporting companies in this space. Additionally, Google is on record saying that its algorithms want to achieve significant improvement over the long term in order for a website to recover. Therefore, a site may have to wait for the next core update or even another one (or another one). I have experienced serious situations where it took over a year for a website to recover after implementing significant improvements in content, UX, ad situation, affiliate setup, technical issues leading to quality issues, and more.
And I said “usually” earlier because there are times when sites have recovered from a major core update outside of a major core update. I’ll discuss how this can happen next.
Google could decouple algorithms from major core updates and run them separately.
At the Mountain View Webmaster Conference in 2019, I asked Google’s Paul Haahr if Google could roll out broader core updates more frequently (since many site owners were working hard on recovery and only rolling them out a few times a year). He explained that Google does so much evaluation between core updates that it can be a bottleneck in rolling out these updates more frequently. But Paul explained that they always could decouple Algorithms from comprehensive core updates and run them separately. And we’ve seen this several times over the years.
For example, the September 2022 major core update affected several prominent news publishers (such as CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Mail, etc.). When the core update was completed, news publishers were still unreachable. But four weeks later, an unconfirmed update came out and news publishers came roaring back. It was a great example of Google decoupling an algorithm (or several) from major core updates and executing them separately.
Renovation and the “Kitchen Sink” approach:
Now that I’ve established that “quality” is more than just content, I can say more about how to fix it when quality is the problem. It’s incredibly important to understand that Google wants to achieve significant improvement in the long term. And Google evaluates a website overall with comprehensive core updates. This means that you should NOT cherry-pick changes. Instead, uncover all potential quality issues and address as many as possible.
And since you can’t really recover until another major core update (or more), being too picky about the changes you implement could result in you never leaving the gray area (and never recovering). But you won’t know how close you are to recovery… I’ve always said this is a crazy place for website owners to live. That’s why it’s important to objectively analyze your site through the lens of comprehensive core updates and uncover as many issues as possible in the areas of content, UX, ads, affiliate setup, technical SEO issues that cause quality issues, and more. Then repair as many as possible. I’ve often said that when it comes to major core updates, there’s never hard proof… Usually there is a battery of it. I have seen myself helping at many large and complex sites over the years.
“Quality Indexing”: An incredibly important topic for website owners.
I’ve covered this topic many times in my major core update blog posts and presentations. Google states that every indexed page is taken into account in the quality rating. This is why it is extremely important to understand the quality of the entire website and focus on what I call “quality indexing”. This ensures that only your highest quality content can be indexed, while ensuring that low-quality or thin content is not indexed.
Don’t just look at recently posted content, look at all of your content. It’s not uncommon for me to find large amounts of low-quality or thin content on a large and complex website. It depends on the ratio. Don’t look past this point.
Machine learning systems in play (and what that means):
Google uses machine learning for important algorithm updates such as comprehensive core updates, helpful content updates, and reviews updates. It is very important to understand how they work. First, you will never reverse engineer a major core update. always. With machine learning systems, Google may send thousands of signals to the machine learning system, which dictates the weight of those signals and ultimately the ranking. This is why improving a website overall is the way to go.
Bing’s Fabrice Canel explained this in 2020 based on how Bing’s core ranking algorithm works. He explained that even the engineers do not understand the specific weight of signals because the machine learning system calculates the weight. So work on overall improvement, uncover any potential quality issues and try to fix as many as possible. Use the “kitchen sink” approach to remediation. That’s a smart way.
It’s nearly impossible to test major core updates.
When I talk to site owners who have been heavily impacted by major core updates, I often hear something like, “We ran a lot of tests, but nothing worked…” When I ask more about these tests, they are often short-term tests of the whole certain things. In my opinion, the site owners didn’t make enough changes, didn’t fix enough problems, or didn’t maintain the right changes long enough. Then after a few weeks they reverted the changes they made (even though some were the right changes!).
That is NOT how it works.
Here too, Google evaluates a website overall and in the long term. You cannot perform short-term testing for major core updates. My recommendation is to always implement the right changes for users and keep them long-term. Here’s how to recover from a big core update hit. If not, you are essentially playing an SEO game with little chance of success.
Rich snippets can be affected:
This is a short but important point. Due to Google’s reassessment of quality, rich snippets may be lost during major core updates. For example, it’s not uncommon for websites to lose review snippets if they’re heavily impacted by a major core update. Essentially, Google is saying that your website is not high quality enough to receive this treatment in the SERPs. The good news is that if you do enough to increase quality in the long term, you can get them back.
Current changes are not reflected in comprehensive core updates.
When you talk to some companies who reach out after they’ve been hit by a major core update, they often think that something they implemented just before the update had a big impact on a drop. That’s probably not the case. Google has stated in the past that for major algorithm updates such as major core updates, Google evaluates the site over time. Recent changes would not be reflected in these updates. So if you implemented a change a week or two before the update, it’s highly unlikely that it would cause an issue from a general core update perspective.
You’re probably too close to your own website. Conduct a user study.
I wanted to end with an incredibly important point that appears in almost all of my comprehensive core update presentations and blog posts. I strongly recommend conducting a user study for major core updates. I wrote a whole post about the power of user studies, and Google even linked to that post their own post about core updates. It’s extremely powerful to get feedback from objective users trying to complete a task on your website.
And I’m not referring to your spouse, children, or friends who visit your website. I’m referring to selecting objective people from a user panel that fit your core demographic. Then let them try to complete tasks on your website and provide feedback. The questions you ask could be based on Google’s original Panda questions, questions from Google’s comprehensive core updates post, questions based on the Quality Rater Guidelines, helpful content documentation, and more.
And while conducting a user study sounds like an obvious step, I find most websites not Conduct user studies for one reason or another. I don’t understand why this happens… but it seems that everyone is excited about conducting a study, but few actually do the study. Again, you can read my post about conducting a user study for major core updates to learn more about how it works, what you can learn, and more. I highly recommend setting up a study (or several).
Summary: Playing the long game with major core updates.
I hope this post helped you learn more about how Google’s comprehensive core updates work. In my experience, it’s important to play for the long term with core updates because Google evaluates a website for quality over the long term. If you are negatively affected by a major core update due to quality issues, be aware that you will need to make significant improvements to the site over time. And if there is a severe impact, you won’t be able to truly recover until another major core update comes out (as long as you’ve done enough to recover). So work to uncover any issues that may lead to quality issues, work to fix as many as possible, and continue to improve the site over time. This is the best way to recover from a major core update hit.
Again, I will update this post with more information over time. Until the next major core update, good luck.
GG