News from Google about the launch of a new Core Update on August 22nd felt almost like a relief. Tension has been building since the last official update in April 2023, mainly because there has been a lot more fluctuation in Google search results than usual. However, the new update does not explain what was happening in May, June and July. The changes measured in Google search results for the past months have all the hallmarks of a series of algorithm updates by Google. Website owners that were affected by these unconfirmed updates still don’t know why they have lost visibility and traffic.
In a podcast launched the same day as the Core Update, the team at Google responsible for communicating with SEOs and website owners gave some insights into how and why they communicate on updates. However, they seem to be under the impression that they communicate on a lot of updates, whereas Google have only confirmed 4 this year.
At the time of writing, there is still no news on the public launch of AI-powered chat in Google search results. You can test this feature by opting into the Search Generative Experience with Google Labs.
August 22nd – August 2023 Core Update
A new update to Google’s ranking systems was announced on August 22nd via a post on the @googlesearchc X (Twitter) account and on the Google Search Status Dashboard. The full announcement was “Today we released the August 2023 core update. We’ll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://developers.google.com/search/updates/ranking/”
There was no dedicated blog post for this Core Update, just a link to the Google Search’s core updates and your website page on Google Search Central that was last updated on March 2023 – the date of the previous Core Update.
The update is expected to roll out from August 22nd to September 6th, but it is best to keep an eye on the Google Search Status Dashboard to confirm when the update is finished. We can often see an impact of updates the day they launch but this was not the case according to tools like Rank Risk Index by Rank Ranger (shown above). The first changes were recorded on August 25th.
Core Updates are regular occurrences, there have been 2 or 3 per year since 2019 and they are broad updates to the ranking algorithms (rather than changes to specific systems or signals) that look at the quality of content overall. It is generally thought that Core Updates refresh a quality score for sites that is linked to E-E-A-T (Experience- Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).
If you see that your site has lost rank during the roll-out period of a Core Update, you can assume that your content has received lower quality score than it previously had. Google explains that this may simply be because your content has become outdated, giving an example of an article on the top 100 movies written in 2021 (that couldn’t possibly include movies released in 2022 and 2023). Other hints from Google on how it assesses content quality can be found in the documentation Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content. This document has the sections:
- Self-assess your content
- Provide a great page experience
- Focus on people-first content
- Avoid creating search engine-first content
- Get to know E-E-A-T and the quality rater guidelines
- Ask “Who, How, and Why” about your content
If you understand why your content may be considered as low quality and you can improve it, you will need to wait for the next Core Update to have the score re-evaluated and improve ranking.
See our guide for Optimizing WordPress sites for Google EAT for more information on how you can optimize your site using SEOPress.
Unconfirmed updates continue in August
The announcement of the August Core Update is the first official update to Google’s ranking algorithm since April 2023. However, as we reported in May, June and July, search engine ranking tools have noticed a lot of changes in ranking recently without Google giving any explanation as to what is happening. Website owners who have lost ranking and traffic over this period may have no idea what has caused the problem.
The SEMRush Sensor tool is showing that SERP volatility has been constantly “High” or “Very High” throughout August, according to its measurements. Before the announcement of the Core Update, Barry Schwartz noted on seroundtable.com that there appeared to be specific, unconfirmed updates on August 3-4 and August 18-19.
Let’s talk ranking updates podcast
On August 22nd, Google also released a new episode of the Search Off The Record podcast specifically on the subject of ranking updates. The podcast is presented as “coming to you from the Google Search team, discussing all things Search and having some fun along the way.” If you have never listened before, be warned that the good intention of “having fun along the way” (learning can be made easier if it is made fun) can sometimes mean that it is difficult to distinguish jokes from serious statements.
The episode is hosted by Search Relations team members Martin Splitt and features John Mueller as well as special guest Danny Sullivan, Google’s Public Search Liaison who is presented as the author of Google’s documentation on Search Ranking Systems.
Danny discusses the goal behind the Search Ranking Systems documentation, specifically moving understanding away from the idea of a single Google ranking algorithm to a collection of ranking systems that work together to produce Google Search results. The introduction of the word “systems” has also allowed Google to distinguish between the introduction of a new system (such as the recent Helpful Content System) and updates to these systems. He also included a list of retired (or legacy) systems such as Penguin and Panda in the documentation.
Danny insists that information provided for each system (such as the Helpful Content documentation) gives website owners information on how the system works, self-assessment questions and actionable help on improving pages. But he advises SEOs to get into a new “mindset that instead of chasing one particular thing, … understand whether or not, from a human point of view, you’re aligned with these broad things overall.”
Interesting points to note are that Google has not included all ranking systems in its documentation (so some do remain secret) and it does not communicate on every update it makes. This could be a hint on what causes volatility in search results even when no official announcement is made. Talking about requests from website owners to explain unconfirmed updates, they joke that they often investigate but find no explanation.
Bizarrely, when you think about the lack of official update announcements (only 4 this year), Danny also apologizes about there being so many updates. Was this a joke too?
