It is starting to look like Google has stopped releasing information about updates to its search algorithms. In 2021, Google’s Search Liaison Danny Sullivan said that Google made changes to algorithms every day and although they could not communicate on every update, they did work hard to give ample notice and advice about changes where actionable information could be given to website owners. In 2022, Google communicated on 10 updates to search algorithms. In the first 6 months of 2023 it has communicated on just 3 updates.
During May and June, SERP tracking tools have spotted major changes to search ranking that look like major updates, but there is no information coming out of Google as to what these updates are about and what website owners can do maintain and improve ranking. We are left with interpreting advice given by Danny or the Google Search Relations team (Gary Illyes, John Mueller and Martin Split) assuming that it has some relevance to ongoing, unconfirmed updates. It is not the ideal situation imagined by Danny Sullivan in 2021.
RankRanger - Google Desktop SERP Fluctuations: last 30 Days</a>" width="1200" height="720" srcset="https://www.seopress.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/01-rankranger.png 1200w, https://www.seopress.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/01-rankranger-768x461.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Unconfirmed Google Updates Again
Volatility shown in SERP tracking software (like RankRanger is the screen-shot above) and general chatter among the SEO community suggest that Google released several updates in June 2023. There are distinct periods of turbulence early in the month, around June 17th, June 23rd and again on June 29th. During these updates, ranking changes on Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) with sites winning or losing positions.
As we also reported in May, Google has not confirmed or announced any new updates to its search algorithms since April, so it remains difficult to analyze the reasons behind rank changes. The last official update to Google Search was the April 2023 Reviews Update released on April 12th.
Looking for clues as to what may be causing volatility, it is interesting to note that on June 16th the Google Search Liaison account (Danny Sullivan) tweeted a reminder to create content for users not robots. Linking to the SEO fundamentals documentation Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content. This may suggest that Google may have released a Helpful Content update the next day.
If you create content, a reminder: create your content for people, not robots, for success with Google Search. That's long been our advice. For a refresher, see our guidance about creating helpful, reliable, people-first content: https://t.co/NaRQqb1SQx
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 16, 2023
The message about Helpful Content was also backed up during the Google Search Central Live conference in Tokyo held on the same day. During a presentation on the use of AI in search, Google’s Gary Illyes said that machine learning used in Google’s search algorithms can “understand” and promote natural content. This is pointing towards Google possibly penalizing AI-generated content.
SEO best practices for news sites
During June, SEMRush Sensor tool showed similar results to RankRanger, but Sensor also allows you to drill down to search results by category. It is interesting to note here that websites in the News category appears to have been affected particularly during the month of June with volatility measured as “Very High” from June 6th until the end of the month.
News sites affected by ranking changes in June may want to check out the SEO Best Practices for news sites video released by Google last month. There may be some hints there on how to earn back positions in the search results. Best practices include:
- Create Helpful, relevant content
- Demonstrate E-E-A-T
- Provide a clear publication date
- Provide a last modified date if an article has been significantly modified
- Use images that are relevant for the article
The video also gives good advice on News policies and the Google News Publisher Center that allows news sites distribute article on Google News and other news surfaces.
Report spammy, deceptive or low-quality pages
Another part of the Google search ranking systems that can be updated and cause ranking changes are the Spam Detection Systems. Google says that these systems are constantly updated and use AI to detect and remove spam from search results. On June 14th, however, they launched a new feedback form that allows users to report sites that they think violate their spam policies. This seems to suggest that it needs help detecting spammy, deceptive or low-quality sites.
You can help Google by reporting bad sites here.
Once you have indicated a URL you can chose between “The page displays spammy content”, “The page engages in spammy behavior”, “The page deceptive”, “The page is low quality”, “The page contains paid links” or “Other”.
Once you have chosen one category and clicked Continue, you will then be asked to give a more specific reason for reporting the page to Google and indicate what search query shows the page before submitting the report to Google.
Don’t use ChatGPT or Bard for SEO audits
On June 27th, Google’s Gary Illyes issued what he called a Public Service Announcement on LinkedIn warning website owners away from using LLMs (Large Language Models like ChatGPT or Google Bard) for website audits. He said “LLMs have a very high wow factor, but they have no clue about your website; don’t use them for diagnosing potential issues with it.”
He also reminds website owners searching for SEO advice that LLMs “hallucinate” by which he means that they will give false information and bad advice. This, he explains, is simply because a LLM is just predicting word orders that make sense rather than “thinking” about your question. As well as giving factually correct information they can also give you information that has nothing to do with reality.
Semantic HTML is not a ranking factor
In a video recorded by John Mueller and released on June 29th, he quickly introduces semantic HTML5 tags like ASIDE, ARTICLE, HEADER, MAIN, etc., and reacts to suggestions that these may help rank sites in Google.
The short answer is that semantic tags do not have a direct impact on ranking, but they can help Google understand a page’s content. They may also be useful for other AI tools that crawl your site.
It is also interesting to note that Microsoft Bing’s Webmaster Guidelines also contain a detailed section on semantic tags in the section “Help Bing understand your pages”.
This states, “Use HTML5 semantic elements as they have an intrinsic meaning to browser, developer and search engine, especially use the following HTML5 Semantic Elements: <article>, <aside>, <details>, <figcaption>, <figure>, <footer>, <header>, <main>, <mark>, <nav>, <section>, <summary>, <time>.”
It is likely that your WordPress theme uses HTML5 (rather than older versions of HTML), but that is not a guarantee that it uses semantic tags. You may need to check in the source code of your site to see if they are used. By showing the source code of a post on your website you can then search the source-code for tags like “<ARTICLE>”, “<SECTION>” or “<ASIDE>” – if you cannot find them in the source code it is likely that your theme is not using semantic HTML tags.
Google Analytics
At midnight on June 30th, the old version of Google Analytics (Universal Analytics) stopped processing data and can no longer be used to track site visitors. Users are invited to move to Google Analytics 4 (also known as GA4) and many may find that Google automatically creates a GA4 property for their site.
For more information about installing Google Analytics, see our article How to Setup and Install Google Analytics 4 on WordPress and download our eBook Analyze your audience with Google Analytics to get a great introduction to this new web analytics tool.
