Google Algorithm Updates: March 2022 Product Reviews Update

This update will include all the present signals of the mobile version of the page experience update and outside of the page requiring to be more mobile-friendly. Google declared that all the page experience factors for mobile would be considered except mobile-friendliness. Below is a chart from Google showing the specific factors it’ll consider: What is Page Experience?

There is a detailed developer document by Google on the page experience criteria. These metrics are meant to understand how users will perceive the experience of a specific webpage in terms of page loading time, mobile-friendliness, HTTP protocol, presence of intrusive ads, etc.

Page experience comprises several existing Google search ranking factors, such as the mobile-friendly update, HTTP ranking boost, page speed update, and intrusive interstitials penalty.

With this rollout and the new Google update, Google said not to expect drastic changes. In their own words, “While this update is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences, page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account… Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes.”

Assessing The Impact of Desktop Page Experience Update

Any positive or negative shift in rankings occurring on or after 3rd March can be attributed to Google’s page experience update. To analyze if this is true, use Google tools to analyze your site’s page experience score.

Google Search Console has a dedicated report to evaluate Page Experience on the desktop version of web pages. Using this report, you can analyze how the Page Experience impacts your site.

If the report shows a majority of your pages in red or yellow, it’s possible that any ranking drop on March 3rd happened due to being negatively impacted by the page experience update. If you discover your website has poor page experience scores, find out why by looking at the criteria individually.

Desktop Page Experience Update Criteria

Google’s page experience update for desktop search includes several similar ranking factors as the algorithm launched on the mobile search last year. Desktop page experience ranking factors include:

• Core Web Vitals (LCP + CLS + FID)
• HTTPS Security
• Absence of intrusive interstitials

If your website fails to meet any of the above criteria, you will not benefit from the page experience ranking boost on desktop. However, a ranking drop doesn’t mean your site is penalized for not meeting Google’s page experience criteria.

It simply means sites meeting Google’s criteria might rank above you, causing your pages to rank lower. Therefore, improving your page experience score can help you regain those ranking positions.

Here is the page experience update you need to focus on:

• Is your site HTTPS? If yes, you can rule this out.
• Does your site have intrusive ads? If not, you can rule this out.
• Does your site pass Core Web Vitals thresholds? If you’re unsure, you’ll have to test it.

It’s crucial to note page experience isn’t everything. Ultimately, content relevance is important, but offering a good page experience also helps.

This update will include all the present signals of the mobile version of the page experience update and outside of the page requiring to be more mobile-friendly. Google declared that all the page experience factors for mobile would be considered except mobile-friendliness. Below is a chart from Google showing the specific factors it’ll consider: What is Page Experience?

There is a detailed developer document by Google on the page experience criteria. These metrics are meant to understand how users will perceive the experience of a specific webpage in terms of page loading time, mobile-friendliness, HTTP protocol, presence of intrusive ads, etc.

Page experience comprises several existing Google search ranking factors, such as the mobile-friendly update, HTTP ranking boost, page speed update, and intrusive interstitials penalty.

With this rollout and the new Google update, Google said not to expect drastic changes. In their own words, “While this update is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences, page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account… Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes.”

Our December 2021 product reviews update is now rolling out for English-language pages. It will take about three weeks to complete. We have also extended our advice for product review creators: https://t.co/N4rjJWoaqE

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 1, 2021

According to Google, they received feedback from the users on what type of content they find useful and trustworthy.Users generally trust reviews that provide evidence of tested products and want multiple options to buy the product.

This is why Google has added this new product review guidance. For now, this update is rolling out for the English-language pages, which will take about three weeks.

Google has also provided two new best practices that you can use for your content.

1) Add more multimedia to your product reviews to support your expertise and showcase your authenticity.

2) Provide links to multiple sellers, which will give your readers the option to purchase from the merchant of their choice.

This new update will promote review content better than the templated information available on the web.

Google will be promoting these in-depth product reviews in their rankings.

However, this doesn’t mean that lower-quality product reviews will be removed completely from the search. Thin content that’s similar to the product description will be demoted from the first page results.

The update’s focus is to ensure that users have access to in-depth product reviews, have original research, and are written by experts.

If your website is offering product review content, it is important that you check how your rankings have been impacted because of the update.

For the long term, you need to ensure that you add more details into your product review content so that it stands out from the competition.

Even though the result of the update seems to be drastic as always for a few websites, Google’s take on it has remained the same.

They call it just yet another update with a focus on ranking websites that are offering better quality content for the search queries entered by the users.

Later today, we are releasing a broad core update, as we do several times per year. It is called the November 2021 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates is here:https://t.co/0LAL28ueDq

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) November 17, 2021

John Mueller tweeted in reply to SEO Rich Messey’s tweet regarding the timing of the November update where he said, “good things go up with the update too.”

I'm curious — would you prefer we just mentioned them afterwards, or not at all? I realize there's an aspect of "never change anything", but good things go up with updates too. (not being snarky, honestly wondering what your thoughts are, feel free to DM if you prefer)

— 🐝 johnmu.xml (personal) 🐝 (@JohnMu) November 18, 2021

Danny Sullevan in one of his tweets wrote, SEOs should probably stop the fear-mongering about the broad core updates and try to reassure website owners about the positive side of it when they have their website follow the best practices.

The reality is core updates make no huge change for most. People shouldn't be panicking; maybe more tweets reassuring people would be more helpful than the virtual red alert. Guidance about core updates hasn't changed. Been doing best practices out there for ages, should be good.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) November 17, 2021

Thinking about what is the best way to optimize your website for safeguarding it from such updates?

The broad core update doesn’t mean there is something wrong with your website. If you see a drop in rankings that’s just an indication that your content may require an update. Refresh the content before doing anything else and don’t switch to panic mode, there isn’t anything that’s irreversible, provided you are doing no blackhat SEO.

Ask yourselves these questions regarding the content:

1. Is it authentic?
2. Does the page really have content that’s useful for the users?
3. Have you included original research, analysis?
4. Is there something that’s unique to your content that makes it stand out?
5. Are the titles within the content relevant to the topic covered or are they misleading?
6. If the content comes under the YMYL category, was it written by someone with high credentials in the field like a doctor or a financial expert?
7. Is your content safe for children and the general public?
8. Is the content contrary to the scientifically proven information?
9. Does it abide by the common rules of grammar, spelling, and style?
10. Is it syndicated to multiple other websites?
11. Are you using too many pop-ups or ads within the content which makes it hard for the user to read?

Websites that do White Hat SEO don’t have to worry much as this update can do more good than harm. That said, sites that indulge in SEO practices that Google deems as spammy may face a drop in rankings.

Google’s announcement on Twitter reads “As part of our regular work to improve results, we’ve released a spam update to our systems. This November 2021 spam update should be fully rolled out within a week. We encourage sites to follow our best practices for Search.”

As part of our regular work to improve results, we've released a spam update to our systems. This November 2021 spam update should be fully rolled out within a week. We encourage sites to follow our best practices for Search: https://t.co/jK3ArQmTqT

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) November 3, 2021

The page experience rollout is complete now, including updates to Top Stories mobile carousel. Changes to Google News app have started to rollout as well and will be complete in a week or so.

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) September 2, 2021

Even though the update was scheduled to be complete by August, it seems like Google missed that deadline by a month.

The page experience signals of Google now include:

• Core Web Vitals
• HTTPS
• Mobile-Friendliness
• Intrusive Interstitial Guidelines

These signals combined will now play a vital role in deciding the rankings of websites.

The page experience factor will be critical for search results that have multiple sites providing relevant information. Starting now, Google’s algorithm will evaluate the page experience signal and rank higher pages that have a better user experience.

The explanation says Google has been finding more and more websites using outbound links as a means to monetize their website.

Though such monetization is allowed in some instances, like for an affiliate site, Google wants such sites to make use of the different rel attributes to mark the type of the outbound link.

Unlike the past link updates, the infamous one being Penguin, this new update is not intended to immediately penalize the website. However, what it does is “nullify” the undue advantage that some sites enjoy by building low-quality backlinks.

The official announcement says, “this algorithm update, which will roll out across the next two weeks, is even more effective at identifying and nullifying link spam more broadly, across multiple languages. Sites taking part in link spam will see changes in Search as those links are re-assessed by our algorithms.”

What this means is there are chances websites that overtly used spammy link-building practices will see a drop in rankings.

Through its announcement, Google is sending out a warning to websites that use spammy practices and it’s almost certain that a few sites will start seeing massive fluctuation in rankings after the rollout.

If you see a drop in rankings it doesn’t mean your website has any major flaw but it just means that somebody has better content published.

The July 2021 Core Update, previously announced, is now rolling out:https://t.co/6Xs77WDsur

These typically take 1-2 weeks to finish. Our guidance about such updates is here:https://t.co/e5ZQUA3RC6

Here’s more on how we improve search through updates:https://t.co/IBmInwGOiX

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) July 1, 2021

To give a bit more perspective, the July update was supposed to be launched along with the June Update. However, due to a few modules that required more perfection, the search engine giant decided to roll it in July.

Looking at the fluctuations we are seeing on algorithm sensors, the update seems to be massive, which means a lot of websites should have experienced either a jump in traffic or a drop considering the changes in the keyword rankings.

Here are a few screenshots from popular Algorithm Update Sensors

SEMRUSH Sensor

MozCast

AccuRanker

Though Spam Updates don’t affect genuine websites, the repercussions of the update could be massive for sites with dubious and deceptive intentions.

The official tweet of Google SearchLiason says, “As part of our regular work to improve results, we’ve released a spam update to our systems.”

This spam update will conclude today. A second one will follow next week. We'll add to this tweet thread when that happens.

We encourage sites to follow our best practices for Search: https://t.co/jK3ArQEuir

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 23, 2021

The second batch of Google Spam Update was launched on June 28th and the implications of it remain the same as the earlier one.

Google also officially announced that Spam Update Rollout is now complete.

The second part of our spam update has has begun today, and it will also conclude later today, unless we share otherwise.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 28, 2021

The page experience update is now slowly rolling out (Top Stories will begin using this new signal by Thursday). It will be complete by the end of August 2021. More here: https://t.co/kDwhhOYklK

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) June 15, 2021

The top stories carousel in Google Search (mobile version) now sees non-AMP pages. This means any Google News Approved webpage can feature in the News Carousel irrespective of its Core Web Vitals score or page experience status.

What we know is the page experience ranking factor didn’t play a vital role at least till August.

Google has also confirmed that the page experience update is not going to make a massive difference in the rankings because it’s just one of the many factors that decide which page to rank.

The Page Experrice Update will be part of the larger segment of Google Algorithm that includes other ranking elements such as Mobile-Friendly, Safe Browsing, HTTPS, and No Intrusive Interstitials. Combined, these are called User Experience signals.

We are also expecting Google to do away with the AMP badge on the search results page and replace it with something that lets users identify content that offers a great user experience.

We will keep you posted when Google announces more implications of the Page Experience Update Rollout.

Later today, we are releasing a broad core update, as we do several times per year. It is called the June 2021 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates is here:https://t.co/e5ZQUA3RC6

This will be followed by the July 2021 Core update. Here’s more information about that…

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 2, 2021

As always, the definition of the core update remains the same. It’s intended to present relevant and authoritative content to searchers. What this means is, those sites that failed to rank despite offering quality and authoritative content will benefit from the update.

It has to be also noted that Google rolled out this update in parts. According to the official statement, some of the proposed update modules weren’t yet ready and this forced the team to roll out a partial update this time.

However, Google confirmed that another Core Update will be rolled out next month which will be called the July 2021 Core Update.

Some of our planned improvements for the June 2021 update aren’t quite ready, so we’re moving ahead with the parts that are, then we will follow with the rest with the July 2021 update. Most sites won’t notice either of these updates, as is typical with any core updates….

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 2, 2021

You can expect a reshuffling of SERP rankings due to the impact of the update. This is normal as Google is trying to make the top search results more relevant to the users.

If you find a dip in rankings, make sure to update the content by adding more relevance and authoritativeness. Please keep in mind that the update is not focused on links or any other aspect but is purely based on the search relevance.

We did a quick check on different algorithm trackers and were surprised to find no major fluctuations during the first few houses after the launch.

However, the sensors started spiking up on June 3rd night with the peak being observed on June 4th.

SEMRush Sensor

MozCast

SERP Metrics

Algoroo

The product review update fully rolled out on April 22, 2021, emphasizes the quality of review-type content and the need to meet user intent.

Google is not directly penalizing sites that feature product reviews with low-quality, thin content. However, it will sound more like a penalty when another site with better content than yours shows up while you are pushed down in the SERPs.

The truth is, Google is not posing a penalty against your content but only intends to appreciate sites that put up unbiased and insightful product reviews that help users to make better choices.

This update checks only on product review type content and not anything else. Though data providers claim it to be a big algorithm update, it isn’t as eye-catching as the Google core update.

If you run a product review website, this update will certainly have an impact on your site and it’s time to revamp your content to be in line with this new algorithm update. If not, you don’t have anything to worry about.

Google has also provided noteworthy tips to help website owners understand what kind of product content rank better with this update.

While the update gives a boost to the rankings of such useful content it will push thin reviews down the rankings so that the users don’t have to go back and repeat the same search. According to Google, this is just another improvement that it’s making to the ranking system and should be looked at separately and not as part of the core update.

Google with this new algorithm update aims at helping those websites that are producing rich and useful content that satisfies the intent of the users.

Even though this is an update that has nothing to do with the usual core update, the advice for webmasters remains the same. Produce quality content that helps people satisfy the real intent.

Specific to this update, if you are a website owner that publishes reviews, make sure that the content is written by an expert in the field. Again, this update seems to be more aligned towards E.A.T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust.)

Here are a few tips provided by Google for websites that publish product reviews:

1. Get the content written by an expert
2. Don’t depend on the peripheral content provided by manufacturers. Do a hands-on review with your personal experience of using the product.
3. Based on the kind of product you review, try to include important features, such as the performance if your product is a laptop.
4. Make sure to add a section that speaks about how the product you are reviewing stands out amongst the top competitors.
5. Most products have advantages and disadvantages. Don’t skip both, this shows you are doing an impartial review.
6. If the product is an updated version, compare it with the previous version you used and inform the users how different it is now.
7. Also, tell the readers why they should buy the product and the USPs that they must consider before making the buying decision.
8. Try to identify the beneficiaries of the product. Not all products are beneficial to all people so help the right audience take an informed decision.

What Google is trying to aim with the product review update of 2021 is to make sure that reviews that are genuine rank higher and the ones that are paid by the manufacturer and affiliate site owners don’t make it to the top of search results.

We saw some rigorous movements in the SERP results after the December 2020 Core update.
[adrotate banner=”3″]Check out this tweet from SEO Consultant Marie Haynes:https://twitter.com/Marie_Haynes/status/1336005067124707329

Many sites saw a good /average increase in organic traction after the update, and they thought the good times are back.

But…

The first three days after the update was beneficial and then Google seems to have launched the reversal update.

Many site owners took to Twitter and forums to express their dismay as their ranking improvements disappeared. In some cases, the rankings fell worse than before.

Here is a tweet from Glenn Gabe of G-Squared Interactive:

An update based on one of the reversals I shared yesterday. Ouch, their visibility gains completely reversed as of today (even lower slightly than before the update rolled out). Again, this niche was heavily impacted. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/bEKFUE9051

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) December 11, 2020

 

Our suggestion for you is to continue producing good quality content and not make any panic decisions.

The core algorithm updates are intended to revise the search results to give an advantage to high-quality content that failed to show up.

Unfortunately, this process ends up in a few sites losing the rankings. The most common culprit is stale content.

Make sure to add more relevance and context to your content with additional impetus on adding useful information that users are searching for online.

Also, try creating holistic content than fragmented. Bind your content around topics, clubbing them together in Pillar-Cluster format.

This way, Google will sense more topical relevancy on your content, and you have a higher chance of ranking higher.

The causalities caused by this new broad core update seem to be massive.

By looking at the tweets, and more importantly, the algorithm trackers, it seems like a lot of sites were hit. But there is always a brighter side to this because many sites that were not ranking high are now on top, which is good.

Based on what we know until now, looking at the forum discussions and the SEO community’s sentiments, the Update was more significant than what we saw last May. Probably, Google Algorithms found a lot of things changed during the time of Pandemic that required major reassessment.

Anyhow, it’s pretty clear that the rollout had a global impact, with almost all industries seeing massive SERP fluctuations.

The complete rollout usually takes about a week or two, which means the changes that you are seeing now may be temporary, and the results might be different when the rollout is over. So, keep up your spirits and wait till the rollout is complete before making decisive decisions.

2020 and 2021 weren’t that great anyway; let hope 2022 will open up a lot more opportunities

Here is how the Algorithm Trackers Detected the Impact of the December 2020 Core Update.

SEMRush Sensor

MozCast

AccuRanker

RankRanger

Putting an end to the seven-month wait of SEOs, Google finally announced that the December 2020 Core Update will be rolled out on December 3rd.

The official SearchLiason Twitter handle made the preannouncement about the update. The tweet says, “Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the December 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before.”

The directives for the webmasters remain the same as Google has previously announced that broad core algorithm updates are meant to reassess the quality of pages currently ranking on Google.

This means that the websites that were not ranking higher on Google despite publishing quality content will get a ranking boost. However, the websites that see a drop in rankings have to deep dive into the reasons that could have triggered it.

According to Google, a drop in rankings after the core update doesn’t mean that the website or its content is bad. The search giant says it could be just that someone has written an updated content or added fresh data, which the users are more interested in reading.

What makes this update more significant is that it came after a hiatus of more than seven months.

Since late 2018, it has been a pattern for Google to roll out an update every three months, but the last confirmed Broad Core Update was announced back in May 2020, just as most countries around the world were passing through the worst phase of COVID 19.

This kind of very high SERP fluctuation is usually the result of Google making decisive changes to its algorithm as it does a number of time every year. Usually, these unannounced massive fluctuations are precursors to a looming broad core update.

SERP Fluctuation Detected by Different Algorithm Trackers

SEMRush

SERP Metrics

Rank Ranger

AccuRanker

It looks like Google has rolled back a few signals of May Core Update on the 23rd June as we have seen websites hit by the last Broad Core Update getting ranking improvements.

Here is a quick analysis of the unconfirmed Google Update that I did along with Senthil Kumar, VP, Stan Ventures.

The sensors are also showing a big spike in ranking fluctuations

AccuRanker

Advanced Web Rankings

RankRanger

SEMRush Sensor

SERPMetrics

Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the May 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog post for more about that:https://t.co/e5ZQUAlt0G

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 4, 2020

The roll-out, like all other typical broad core algorithm updates, took a week to complete, and the impact took some time to reflect on the results.

The May 2020 Core Update is now rolling out live. As is typical with these updates, it will typically take about one to two weeks to fully roll out.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 4, 2020

Unlike the daily updates that Google launches, the broad core algorithm update has vast implications as it is notorious for shuffling the organic results, causing fluctuations in the organic rankings of websites.

However, there is no quick fix if a broad core algorithm update hits you, says Google. The reason for the decline in the organic ranking is not because your website has serious SEO issues, but it is the result of Google finding better results for the search query.

Listen to my discussion with Senthil Kumar, VP, Stan Ventures about the impact of Google May Core Algorithm Update:

Full Transcript

Senthil: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of SEO on Air. Today I have with me my colleague, Dileep. And this is the first time we’re collaborating on this (podcast). Dileep is our content head and takes care of the Stan Ventures web content.

Most of you who are listening to this will be aware of the rank for most of the competing keywords when it comes to Google algorithm updates. So it’s the time of the year where Google releases these algorithm updates and you may see a bump in your web traffic. Well, that doesn’t really mean it’s all because of the algorithm update, as it could as well be seasonal traffic. So, we are here to discuss what this algorithm update is about and what it can cause.

So, I and Dileep came up with the podcast idea just five minutes back (we were having a conversation about what’s happening out there). It’s a very ad hoc, impromptu podcast, I would say. Anyway, Dileep, welcome to the show, man.

Dileep: Thank you. Thank you.

Senthil: The topic for today’s discussion is the Google algorithm update. The core algorithm update is very special because it’s a rock-solid one. They (Google) waited for two months and then released it.

Dileep: Yes. So now they have a definite pattern for launching the algorithm updates, at least the core one. The last one was launched in March, the other in Jan. So definitely we can expect a broad core algorithm update during the period of every two-months.

Within the SEO community, many SEO forums were discussing Google postponing the update because of COVID. However, I think Google had its own plans.

So this time, if you check the fluctuations after the May broad core update, they are huge. There was a big launch last year, the BERT. It was said that almost 10% of the global search will have its impact, but you can’t see much fluctuation.

However, compared to the last three or four Google algorithm updates, this one has high fluctuation. This means some websites, which were ranking on top, have definitely felt the heat. Some well-maintained websites may have improved their rankings, but a handful of websites that were ranking on the first page or the featured snippet have definitely felt an impact of this update.

Senthil: I did notice that because I was tracking a few high-value keywords last week in an insurance article for a prospective client. We were doing an SEO audit and trying to figure out what they were ranking for. When talks began, they were in the sixth position, and after we submitted the proposal, they were in the third position. They were pretty happy about it.

But one thing that I noticed was that earlier, the first and second position was dominated by really good brands in the industry. The prospective client was in the third position while other data aggregators like Policy Bazaar were ranking in the fifth and sixth places.

After this update, these big brand websites have gone down the ranking scale and the data aggregating sites with some really good content have climbed up the ladder. It’s a weakness because, instead of tracking the services pages of websites for keywords related to money, Google is choosing to focus on sites with huge chunks of detailed content.

Dileep: I think that’s pretty good because Google is tracking for the users. So, for example, the guy who lost his ranking for a money-related keyword may rank on his features page for the same keyword. However, if a user clicks on the site and finds the information useless, he/she will definitely click back to the search page and find the right site for their needs. So this is basically Google collecting information from users over time, using tactics like this where the user closes one site and opens another, and letting them know what they want ranking on SERPs.

That’s why there is always a gap of two to three months when they launch the Broad core update. If you check on a daily basis, Google launches two to three updates every now and then. Last year alone, there were almost 900,000 updates launched.

Coming back to the money keyword, we have to understand that the user typing the keyword is not considering it as one. He wants something else, and that’s why the blogs are ranking now.

Senthil: So, let me share my screen and do a quick check. I think you’ve already added a detailed analysis on this, so let’s do a quick walkthrough. For people who are listening to this, we’ll be adding this podcast on the blog post as well for your perusal.

Dileep: The day the update was launched, there were no major fluctuations in rankings. What usually happens is that after Google rolls out the update, its effects start showing over the next few days.

It was on May 4th that Danny Sullivan, through his official Google account, announced that they were going to launch the new update. But when I checked the Moz and SemRush sensors on that particular day, both these tools were not showing much fluctuation.

It was on May 4th that they announced the update, but the fluctuation started from May 5th.

Senthil: Yeah. I can see a big tower here.

Dileep: Actually, there is a bigger update, which you can see if you Google SEMRush sensor, and it has caused huge fluctuation in rankings.

Usually, the algorithm updates are launched across multiple data centers. On May 5th, when it was just rolled out, the SEMRush sensor was at 7.7, and you can see a huge spike on May 6th.

Senthil: Yeah, just shot up like anything.

Dileep: So this huge spike in rank fluctuations is something that I haven’t seen for at least one and a half years. It can be a good indicator that many websites have been hit by the update. You can also see all the categories that have got hit.

Senthil: So it’s clearly not a regular update. When it comes to Google core algorithm updates, it’s across industries. It’s not like an EAT update or YMYL update where only the money websites, insurance, healthcare, and other similar websites were affected.

But if you look at a broad core algorithm update, you can easily figure out that by looking at this itself, you can look at all the categories. Almost everybody has taken a hit, right? This gives you a sense that this is definitely a broad core algorithm update.

So the local pack, obviously, because of the COVID and other reasons, might have taken a hit, but look at this knowledge panel, the growth by 32.2%.

Dileep: And also, if you check for some individual niches, you can see there’s a huge drop in featured snippet positions during that particular day.

But it has picked up after they rolled out the update completely. So this means that they have made some fresh changes to what they are displaying on the featured snippet data. So if you’ll just select one of the top niches in that, go to finance or even health.

Senthil: Yeah. Let’s look at health care because that’s the department where last year, the update hit them. The local pack has taken a hit by 1.2%

Dileep: So you can see how the featured snippet has been packed at this thing climb, which is showing, that is how the featured snippets, so that day when they launched that date, the featured snippet went down. Like anything. So that means they really did some refresh on the feature snippet area, and now we can see it is normalizing.

One thing about featured snippets is you can see that they are getting the user’s inputs. They have a feedback area for all the features in the search results displayed. They get feedback from the users and they use it whenever they do a broad core algorithm update. That’s what I have seen while analyzing the past few updates that they have rolled out.

A feature snippet position is something that no website owner can say, “I am ranking on the featured snippet and I will be ranking there for the rest of the year.” You can’t predict it because this is something that Google decides and based on many factors, which they obviously have not revealed.

But yeah, there are techniques in which you can optimize your content to rank on featured snippets, which most of the website owners are also trying to do.

So the position of the featured snippet is something that is kind of volatile when an algorithm update is launched.

Senthil: Let’s look at mobile as well. The data might be skewed anyways because COVID 19 is there and there will be naturally a decrease.

Dileep: The problem is that the user’s mentality for search has changed over the last two months. There are a lot of daily updates that they are rolling out. So, based on that, they are tweaking the search results on a daily basis.

There are chances that some of the niches, before even launching this particular update, were facing some kind of fluctuation in their ranking because the user intent kind of changed after the COVID incident.

Senthil: Absolutely. So I think the best thing for whoever has lost the rankings, I know some, I mean, there are always winners and losers and it changes.

So if you’ve won, congratulations. Enjoy the cake and enjoy the victory. But the people who have been building so far and have lost the rankings, I don’t think we should panic. I think there’s not much that you can do about it. Probably, you can get back to the basics. Try to check the spammy links, try to look at the person that outranks you. Look at that page and look at the content styling.

Dileep, what I feel is when people are looking at it, they miss the point that “what is the intent?” Why did Google outrank it? For example, at the beginning of the conversation, I told you. This was a money page where it is trying to sell an insurance product.

But the website that has outranked this website has a page which talks about top 10 insurance products that you can buy. And it has a really good comparison. So I think the intent shift is there. Instead of thinking that you should add all your content on the service page, maybe you can rethink the strategy, look at the search results and figure out what Google prefers to show more.

Maybe if they are gonna show more blog pages, then maybe it’s time for you to recheck if any blog on your website has the capacity to go and try to do that. Because if you’re still stuck with the money page, then probably, it might work or it might not.

So it’s always better to have your link man in place so that if anything happens and you know, you still have a lifeline to save you.

Dileep: I think one of the reasons why people try to put these kinds of money keywords for the service pages itself is because the number of conversions that happen from a blog page probably might be a little less than the service page.

So that is probably the thought process. But here, the intent is different than the user who is coming from a blog based content will never buy a product from your website. So he’s in the top of the funnel probably, like we say in marketing. So he’s just exploring the options. Even if you are ranking for the keyword on the featured snippet, I don’t think the person will buy the product from you.

He will again go back, he will do his research and probably, later on in the stage of his marketing funnel, he might come back again. But again, at the initial stage, he will not. So ideally, if that is the case, then I would prefer having a blog rather than my service page.

Senthil: Absolutely. You’re right. Actually, the money keyword is still there. Money keywords, like for example buy with a particular name, the ranking still hasn’t changed. But the ranking has changed for the top of the funnel informative keywords. So I think the change is now Google itself is trying to realign themselves into saying hey if you’re an insurance company, don’t go after the keyword insurance. That’s all. That’s what Google is trying to say.

If it’s like insurance, it means the intent of the user is to look at multiple comparisons. So even if you’re a big brand so far, you might have won that cushion layer from Google because Google thinks the best brands should always rank, but now I think that is getting decimated with this.

So basically, they want to keep the users happy. That’s how Google earns. So if the user is not happy, then they are losing their own money. So they want to make users as happy as possible.

They have all the ways to understand whether the user is happy or not. They can check the time spent on the page, the bounce rate; these are all signals that Google already has to measure whether the user is happy or not. So there is no way we can trick it. I think the thought process should be to align ourselves with the intent of the user.

Just forget about Google, let’s just forget about Google for the time being, and just try to focus on your user. If your user is coming for something, which is probably a blog post, you provide him that rather than putting your service page upfront.

Senthil: So hopefully, yes. Guys, that summarizes the discussion. So, if you are affected by this algorithm update, please don’t panic. Just look at who has outranked you. Look at what intent that website satisfies and ensure that you’re able to match up to that expectation. And for God’s sake, don’t go after the single keywords. Go after the keywords that solve the intent.

That is exactly what Google is trying to do. Don’t try to be Wikipedia. Try to be a brand. You’re there to make money, so whatever pages that make you money, try to focus on the page and don’t go after the tons of other things out there.

So that summarizes this discussion. Thank you so much, everyone. So Dileep, you have anything else to add before I wind up this podcast?

Dileep: One more thing, I think there are a lot of people who are in panic mode because I am seeing a lot of comments on our Google algorithm update page, telling that they are almost on the verge of closing down their business because of this update. So what I would like to tell them is this is something that is probably a phase in your digital marketing platform. So basically, it can turn around within the next algorithm update.

So what usually happens is once the algorithm update is launched, then after two or three days, Google would analyze whether the update has hit some genuine websites. So what they used to do is they used to roll back whatever negative things were there within the update.

Senthil: Like a refresh. They usually release it after a couple of weeks. So your job is not lost yet, guys. So don’t worry. There will definitely be a refresh coming up and the good sites that got knocked down by this, they will get their thing back. But that also depends on who outranked you. So if that outranked guy is better than you, then that is a very little chance.

Dileep: Yeah, but again, if they keep on trying to improve upon their content, I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to rank when the next broad core algorithm is launched. So Google itself says a majority of the sites who are hit by a broad core algorithm update, they can only recover when another broad core algorithm update is launched.

So basically, just wait for another two months. Do a good job, continue producing good quality content, and then you’ll have a sure shot of ranking again.

Senthil: Absolutely. Great. Thanks, man. It was a good conversation. So anyone having any questions around this, please feel free to leave your comments.

We’ll do our best to get back to you. Dileep will answer whatever technical things that you guys have. Feel free to give a shout out and hopefully, we get through this. Already COVID on one side and the core algorithm on the other side. Tough times actually make the best businesses, so if you’re able to survive the next two months, you can survive at least for a while.

So all the best guys! Feel free to share your comments, and don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe. I’m just trying to become like the YouTubers. Anyway, thank you so much. Have a nice day.

The only way for websites that are impacted by the broad core update is to improve the quality of the content and its authority.

We did a quick analysis of the popular algorithm trackers and the impact of the Broad Core Update seems significant. Here are a few screenshots.

MozCast

 

 

SERPMetrics

 

 

SEMRush Sensor

 

 

RankRanger

 

 

AccuRanker

We will keep you posted with all insights about the May 2020 Core Update.

However, we believe that this is a passing phase, and things will normalize once the threat of COVID-19 is over. We are all looking up to that day and hope you and your family are safe during these difficult times.Google has made several steps to ensure that no fake news goes out to the public through their SERP, and this has resulted in many Health and Wellness websites seeing massive fluctuations. If you check the SERP page for COVID-19, it’s evident that Google doesn’t want to take a chance by listing sites other than the high authority ones.

Since Google has not come up with any announcements regarding the core update, these changes have to be deciphered as the result of the change in search behavior of the users.

Going by the algorithm trackers, there is a high fluctuation almost every day. What we are now going through is unforeseen circumstances, and the same is happening in the search landscape.

Such a scenario has never occurred in the internet era, and the current changes and fluctuations have to be put into in-depth analysis before we can conclude on the factors that are making such violent SERP changes.

If you are seeing massive traffic drop or keyword positions decreasing, I suggest you not to make a series of changes at this point in time. Keep doing the great work and wait until the good times are back

SERP Fluctuations Through the Eyes of Algorithm Trackers

 

AccuRanker

 

 

Advanced Web Ranking

 

 

Algoroo

 

 

MozCast

 

 

 

RankRanger

 

 

SEMRush Sensor

 

 

SERPMetrics

 

However, it seems like an update with as much or even more impact than a Broad Core Algorithm Update was rolled out – unnoticed.

Algoroo

 

 

SERPMetrics

 

 

MozCast

 

 

SEMRush Sensor

 

 

RankRanger

 

I asked Danny whether there was a significant update. However, the answer came out to be the same template that Google executives provide when they are hesitant to reveal further details of the update.

We do updates all the time. I would suggest rereading our general advice about this: https://t.co/aL4QObvvhH

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) February 13, 2020

However, I’d take this reply from Danny as a “Yes” to my question. We will be doing an in-depth analysis of the websites impacted by this update in the coming days.

According to Danny, Google’s Public Searchliaison, the new tweak in the algorithm will ensure the Search Results page is not cluttered, and only relevant information gets displayed.He also confirmed that starting today, the featured snippet will be counted as one of the ten listings on the SERP.

“If a web page listing is elevated into the featured snippet position, we no longer repeat the listing in the search results. This declutters the results & helps users locate relevant information more easily. Featured snippets count as one of the ten web page listings we show,” tweeted Danny.

Danny also confirmed that the new update has been rolled out 100% and is now effective globally.

It rolled out today 100% globally.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) January 22, 2020

Interestingly, I had predicted the same to happen and had asked Google’s John Mueller whether Google is testing the new featured snippet update. John’s reply to my tweet was convincing enough to believe that they were indeed testing the new update, which is now live.

These are organic search features, so they can change over time.

— 🐝 johnmu.xml (personal) 🐝 (@JohnMu) January 16, 2020

The January 2020 Core Update is now live and will be rolling out to our various data centers over the coming days.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 13, 2020

The rollout was pre-announced through the Google Search Liaison official twitter handle. The tweet read, “Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the January 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. “

Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the January 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog post for more about that:https://t.co/e5ZQUA3RC6

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 13, 2020

Google rolls out close to a thousand algorithm updates each year. However, it’s only a few times in a year that a broad core algorithm update is released. The significance of the broad core algorithm is closely related to the impact it has on the websites.

Unlike the core update, which usually goes unnoticed due to the fewer tremors it causes, the Broad Core Algorithm Update makes significant SERP fluctuations, which often results in giving webmasters panic attack.

Google has been telling webmasters that the only way to recover from the impact of a Broad Core Algorithm update is by building great content. It also says that these updates are focused on improving search quality by giving users better search results.

During the initial days after the Algorithm Update, various Algorithm Update trackers started showing huge fluctuations. This is an indication that a lot of websites are in fact seeing an increase or decrease in their organic ranking positions.

Accuranker

 

 

Algoroo

 

Moz Cast

 

 

Rank Ranger

 

 

SEMRush

 

 

SERP Metrics

 

During the announcement of the BERT Algorithm Update, Google confirmed that its new language processing algorithm will try to understand words in relation to all the other words in a query, rather than one-by-one in order. This gives more impetus to the intent and context of the search query and delivers results that the user seeks.The Google SearchLiaison official tweet says, “BERT, our new way for Google Search to better understand language, is now rolling out to over 70 languages worldwide. It initially launched in Oct. for US English.”

Here is the list of languages that uses the BERT natural language processing algorithm to display Google search results:

Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azeri, Basque, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified & Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian Malay (Brunei Darussalam & Malaysia), Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Slovenian, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, and Spanish.

Difference Between BERT and Neural Matching Algorithm

The announcement about the rollout of the November Local Search Algorithm Update by Google opened up a pandora of questions in the webmaster’s community. The whole hoo-ha about the update stems from the term “neural matching.”

It was only in September that Google announced the rollout of its BERT update, which is said to impact 10% of the search results. With another language processing algorithm update now put in place, the webmaster community is confused as to what difference both these updates will make on the SERP results.

Google has patented many language processing algorithms. The BERT and the Neural Matching are just two among them. The Neural Matching Algorithm was part of the search results since 2018. However, this has been upgraded with the BERT update in 2019 September.

As of now, Google has not confirmed whether the Neural Matching Algorithm was replaced by the BERT or if they are working in tandem. But the factors that each of these algorithms uses to rank websites are different.

The BERT Algorithm is the derivation from Google’s ambitions project Transformers – a novel neural network architecture developed by Google engineers. The BERT tries to decode the relatedness and context of the search terms through a process of masking. It tries to find the relation of each word by taking into consideration the predictions given by the masked search terms.

Talking about Neural Matching, the algorithm is closely related to research that Google did on fetching highly relevant documents on the web. The idea here is to primarily understand how words are related to concepts.

The Neural Matching algorithm uses a super-synonym system to understand what the user meant by typing in the search query. This enables users to get highly relevant local search results even if the exact terms don’t appear in the search query.

When it comes to local business owners, the Neural Matching algorithm will better rank businesses even though their business name or description aren’t optimized based on the user queries. Neural Matching algorithm in Local Search results will be a boon to businesses as the primary ranking factor will be the relatedness of the words and concept.

Basically, the BERT and Neural Matching Algorithms have different functional procedures and are used in different verticals of Google. However, both these algorithms are trained to fulfill Google’s core philosophy – to make the search results highly relevant.

However, Google also said that webmasters need not make any changes to the site as this local algorithm update is all about improving the relevance of the search based on the user intent. The search engine giant also confirmed that the local search algorithm update has a worldwide impact across all languages.

The new update helps users find the most relevant results for local search that matches their search intent. However, Google has been using this for displaying search results since 2018, primarily to understand how words are related to concepts.

The new algorithm now understands the concept behind the search by understanding how the words in the search query are closely related to each other. Google says it has a massive directory of synonyms that help the algorithm to do that neural matching.

Starting November 2019, Google uses its AI-based Neural matching system to rank businesses in Local Search results. Until recently, Google was using the exact words found on a business name or description to rank websites on local search.

Moz Weather

Rank Ranger

Recipe sites, Travel Blogs, and Web Design companies get a lot of footer links, and most of the time, they are out of context. This, according to the Google link scheme document, is a spammy practice. According to Google, “widely distributed links in the footers or templates of various sites” will be counted as unnatural links. This may have played spoilsport, resulting in a drop in rankings.

After the chatters online, Google came up with an official confirmation via a tweet on the SearchLiason Twitter handle, stating that there have not been any broad updates in the past weeks. However, the tweet once again reiterates that there are several updates that happen on a regular basis.

In the Twitter thread, Google also gave examples of the type of algorithm updates that will have a far-reaching impact on search and how the search engine giant informs webmasters prior to the launch of such updates to ensure that they are prepared.

 

Only a few Algorithm trackers have registered the impact:

 

Advanced Web Analytics

 

 

MOZ Weather

 

 

RankRanger

 

 

SEMRush Sensor

 

 

SERPMetrics

 

With so much emphasis given to the latest Google Algorithm Update – BERT, it’s most likely going into the SEO history books along with its predecessors, Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird, and RankBrian. The update will affect 1 out of 10 organic search results on Google search, with a major impact on Search Snippets, aka Featured Snippets.Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, codenamed BERT, is a machine learning advancement made by Google involving it’s Artificial Intelligence innovation efforts. BERT model processes words in relation to all the other words in a sentence, rather than one-by-one in order. This gives more impetus to the intent and context of the search query and delivers results that the user seeks.

The announcement about the BERT update was made through the official Twitter handle of the Google SearchLaison. The tweet read, “Meet BERT, a new way for Google Search to better understand language and improve our search results. It’s now being used in the US in English, helping with one out of every ten searches. It will come to more counties and languages in the future.”

The new BERT update makes Google one step closer to achieving perfection in understanding the natural language. This also means that the voice search results will see significant improvement.

To know more about Google’s BERT Update, read our extensive coverage on its origin, concept, and impact on Google search results.

Moz

SERPMetrics

Algoroo

Accuranker

RankRanger

SEMRush Sensor

Here is what the official Google announcement says about the update:

“Today, we’re introducing an algorithmic update to review snippets to ease implementation: – Clear set of schema types for review snippets – Self-serving reviews aren’t allowed – Name of the thing you’re reviewing is required.”

According to Google, the Review rich results have been helping users find the best businesses/services. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of misuse of the reviews as there have been a few updates about it from the time Google implemented it. The impact of Google Search Reviews is becoming more and more felt in recent times.

The official blog announcing the roll out of the new Google Search Review algorithm update says it helps webmasters across the word to better optimize their websites for Google Search Reviews. Google has introduced 17 standard schemas for webmasters so that invalid or misleading implementations can be curbed.

Before the update, webmasters could add Google Search Reviews to any web page using the review markup. However, Google identified that some of the web pages that displayed review snippets did not add value to the users. A few sites used the review schema to make them stand out from the rest of the competitors.

Putting an end to the misuse, Google has limited the review schema types for 17 niches! Starting today, Google Search Reviews will be displayed only for websites that fall under the 17 types and their respective subtypes.

List of Review Schema Types Supported for Google Search Reviews

• schema.org/Book
• schema.org/Course
• schema.org/CreativeWorkSeason
• schema.org/CreativeWorkSeries
• schema.org/Episode
• schema.org/Event
• schema.org/Game
• schema.org/HowTo
• schema.org/LocalBusiness
• schema.org/MediaObject
• schema.org/Movie
• schema.org/MusicPlaylist
• schema.org/MusicRecording
• schema.org/Organization
• schema.org/Product
• schema.org/Recipe
• schema.org/SoftwareApplication

Self-serving reviews aren’t allowed for LocalBusiness and Organization

One of the biggest hiccups faced by Google in displaying genuine reviews was entities adding reviews by themselves via third-party widgets and markup code. Starting today, Google has stopped supporting Google Search Reviews for the schema types LocalBusiness and Organization (and their subtypes) that use third-party widgets and markup code.

Add the name of the item that’s being reviewed

The new Google Search Reviews Algorithm Update mandates the name property to be part of the schema. This will make it mandatory for businesses to add the name of the item being reviewed. This will give a more meaningful review experience for users, says Google.

But discussions are happening in forums about how the update will impact branded queries, which may require Google to list several pages from the same site.

The announcement about the roll-out was made through the official Twitter handle of Google Search Liaison. The tweet read, “Have you ever done a search and gotten many listings all from the same site in the top results?

We’ve heard your feedback about this and wanting more variety. A new change now launching in Google Search is designed to provide more site diversity in our results.”

“This site diversity change means that you usually won’t see more than two listings from the same site in our top results.

However, we may still show more than two in cases where our systems determine it’s especially relevant to do so for a particular search,” reads the official statement from Google.

One of the major changes to expect after the diversity update is with regards to the sub-domains. Google has categorically stated that sub-domains will now be treated as part of the root domain. This will ensure that only one search result appear per domain.

Here is what Google says, “Site diversity will generally treat sub-domains as part of a root domain. IE: listings from sub-domains and the root domain will all be considered from the same single site. However, sub-domains are treated as separate sites for diversity purposes when deemed relevant to do so.”

In both these cases, the plunge that you’re experiencing can be reversed by implementing a well-thought-out SEO strategy with a heavy focus on Google’s E A T quality.However, the initial analysis that we did has some good news for webmasters. The negative impact of the latest update is far less than what we thought.

Interestingly, there are more positive results, and the discussion about the same is rife across all major SEO forums.

This makes us believe that the Broad Core Algorithm update on March 12 is more of a rollback of a few previous updates that may have given undue rankings for a few websites.

Importantly, we found that sites with high authority once again received a boost in their traffic and rankings.

We also found that websites, which had a rank boost last year by building backlinks through Private Blogging Networks, were hit by March 2019 Core Update, whereas the ones that had high-quality, natural backlinks received a spike.

If you’re one of many websites that were affected by the Google March 2019 Core Update, here are a few insights about the damage caused to sites in the health niche.

Health Niche

According to the data provided by SEMRush, Healthcare websites saw a massive fluctuation in traffic and rankings after the recent March 2019 Core Update.

The website has also listed a few top losers and winners. We did an analysis of the top 3 losers and here is what we found:

MyLVAD

MyLVAD is listed as one of the top losers in the Health category according to SEMRush. The Medic Update hit this site quite badly in August 2018, and it seems like the latest March 2019 Core Update has also taken a significant toll.

According to the SEMRush data, the keyword position of MyLVAD dropped by 11 positions on Mar 13. MyLVAD is a community and resource for people suffering from advanced congestive heart failure and relying on an LVAD implant.

We did an in-depth analysis of the site and found that it does not comply with the Google E A T quality.

The resources provided on the site are not credited to experts. Crucially, the contact details are missing on the site.

Since it’s more like a forum, the website has more user-generated content. As this website falls under the YMYL category, it’s imperative to provide the author bio (designation of the doctor in this specific case) to increase the E A T rating.

Also, details such as ‘contact us’ and the people responsible for the website are missing.

PainScale

The PainScale is a website, which also has an app that helps manage pain and chronic disease. The site got a rank boost after the September 2018 update, and until December that year, everything was running smoothly.

The traffic and ranking started displaying a downward trend after January, and now the Florida 2 Update has reduced it further.

On analyzing the website, we found that it provides users with information about pain management. Once again, the authority of the content published on this website is questionable.

Though the site has rewritten a few contents from Mayo Clinic and other authority sites, aggregation is something that Google does not like.

The website also has a quiz section that provides tools to manage pain. However, the website tries to collect the health details of the users and then asks them to sign up for PainScale for FREE.

Google has an aversion to this particular method, as they are concerned about the privacy of its users. This could be one of the reasons for the drop in traffic and rankings of PainScale after the March 2019 Core Update.

Medbroadcast

This is yet again another typical example of a YMYL website that Google puts under intense scrutiny. Medbroadcast gives a lot of information regarding health conditions and tries to provide users with treatment options.

Here again, like other websites on this list, there is no information regarding the author.

Moreover, the site has a strange structure with a few URLs opening in sub domains. The website has also placed close to 50 URLs towards the footer of the homepage and other inside pages, making it look very spammy.

This site also received undue traffic boosts after the Google Medic Update of August 2018. The stats show that the traffic increased after the Medic Update and started to decline at the beginning of January.

Once again, the impetus is on E A T quality signals. The three examples listed above points to how healthcare sites that failed to follow practices mentioned in the Google Quality Rater Guidelines were hit by the Florida 2 Update.

Here are a few tips to improve your website’s E A T rating:

1. Add Author Byline to All Blog Posts

Google wants to know the authenticity of the person who is providing information to users.

If the site falls under the YMYL category, which includes websites in the healthcare, wellness, and finance sectors, the author should be someone who is an expert in that field. Google wants to ascertain that trustworthy and certified authors draft the content displayed to its users.

Getting the content written by content writers is a trend largely seen among YMYL sites. Nevertheless, Google hates it and only wants to promote high-quality, trustworthy content.

2. Remove Scraped/Duplicate Content

Google calculates the E A T score of a website by analyzing individual posts and pages. If you’re engaging, scrapping or duplicating content from another website, chances are you may be hit by an algorithm update.

As seen in one of the above-mentioned examples, paraphrasing content doesn’t make it unique, and Google can identify these types of content very easily.

So, if you think your website has thin, scrapped or rewritten content, it would be ideal to remove it. For YMYL websites, ensure that the content is written by an expert in your niche.

3. Invest Time in Personal Branding

Make sure that your website has an “About Us” page and you’re providing valuable inputs to Google in the form of schema markup.

In addition, positive testimonials and customer reviews, both within the site and outside, can boost the trustworthiness of your website.

Google’s quality rater guidelines also ask webmasters to display the contact information and customer support details for YMYL sites.

4. Focus on the Quality of Back-Links Than Quantity

The Google search quality guidelines suggest that websites with high-quality backlinks have a superior E A T score.

Investing time in building low-quality links through PBNs and blog comments may invite Google’s wrath and can adversely affect a website’s E A T rating.

It’s highly recommended to use white hat techniques such as blogger outreach and broken link building as part of the SEO strategy to get high-quality links.

5. Secure Your Site With HTTPS

The security of its users is a priority for Google, and that’s why it’s pushing websites to get SSL certified. HTTPS is now one of the ranking factors, and it’s also one of the ways to improve the E A T rating of websites.

Also, it has to be noted that Google Chrome now shows all non-HTTPS sites as insecure, which is a clear indication of how Google values the privacy of its users.

To know more about the factors that Google use to rank health websites, read our in-depth article, “Advanced SEO for Healthcare and Medical Websites: Tips to Improve Search Quality Rating“.

Here are a few rumors from the Black Hat World about the Latest Google March 2019 Core Update AKA the Florida 2 Update

“There are 5 projects of mine which are very, very similar to each other. All targeting Beauty/Health niche, all of them have a lot of great content (10k+ articles) and all of them are build on expired domains with a nice brandable name,” says a user going by the name yayapart.

“The G Core Update hit 4 of my 5 projects. One of them, actually the oldest one of them, got a huge push and increased it’s organic traffic about 40%.

The other 3 projects that are affected lost all their best rankings. I don’t see any pattern here yet but it hit me hard,” he added

Another user going by the name Jeepy says, “Health Niche. This site got hit by medic update and now it’s rising back without doing anything. Right…”

“This week, we released a Broad Core Algorithm update, as we do several times per year. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before,” read the tweet post on the official Google SearchLiaison handle.Read our blog to know more about the latest Broad Core Algorithm Update.

Our analysis found that the Google March 2019 Core Update reversed the undue rankings that a few websites got after the Medic Update of August 2018.

In addition to this, most of the sites hit by the update used low-quality links to increase their authority.

See how ranking sensors detected the change:

MozCast

 

SEMRush Sensor

 

AccuRanker

 

Advanced Web Rankings

 

RankRanger

 

Algoroo

 

 

There are also murmurs about Google giving more preference to websites that have in-depth content. Interestingly, Dr. Peter J. Meyers of Moz found that Google displays well-researched articles in the results even for a few buyer intent keywords.

Google possibly wants a mix of products and information to feature in its search. This way, users who are confused with products can read and be informed before making the purchase decision.

There are also chatters about the drop in the number of image search results after the latest Google update on March 1st.

An interesting analytics screenshot shared by Marie Haynes depicts how one of her clients got a massive boost in organic traffic during February 27th and March 1st.

See how ranking sensors detected the change:

AccuRanker

 

 

Advanced Web Rankings

 

 

Algoroo

 

 

MozCast:

 

 

RankRanger

 

 

SEMRush Sensor

 

SERPMetrics

However, it seemed like something big was brewing for the coming days that will make significant changes to the SERP results in Google.Accuranker

 

 

Advanced Web Ranking

 

 

MozCast

 

 

Rank Ranger

 

 

SEMRush Sensor

 

 

SERPmetrics

 

 

Other than a few chatters here and there regarding lost traffic, there is nothing concrete to underscore this as a significant algorithm update.Since it’s widely talked about in blogs and SEO forums, let’s look at a few trackers that sensed the update.

Advanced Web Ranking

 

 

Algoroo

 

 

Accuranker

 

 

MozCast

 

 

RankRanger

 

 

SemRush Sensor

 

 

SERP Metrics

 

Some algorithm trackers suggest the update rolled out during February 5-6 is more devastating than the one rolled out in January.We will keep you posted as we dig deeper into the sites affected by the algorithm update and diagnose the reasons for the drop in rankings.

Here are a few stats:

SERPmetrics

 

 

AccuRanker

 

 

Moz Weather

 

 

Rank Ranger

 

 

SEMRush Sensor

 

A new document released by Google on 16th January 2019 corroborates our findings as it provides advice and tips for the news publishers to get more success in 2019.Our analysis had found the algorithm update rolled out during the second week of January affected the news sites that “rewrote content” or “scraped content from other sites.”

The latest document released by Google proves that we were right. There are two specific sections in the document titled “Ways to succeed in Google News,” which recommend News Publishers to stay away from publishing rewritten and scraped content.

What the Google document says:

 

• Block scraped content: Scraping commonly refers to taking material from another site, often on an automated basis. Sites that scrape content must block scraped content from Google News.

 

• Block rewritten content: Rewriting refers to taking material from one site and then rewriting that material so that it is not identical. Sites that rewrite content in a way that provides no substantial or clear added value must block that rewritten content from Google News. This includes, but is not limited to, rewrites that make only very slight changes or those that make many word replacements but still keep the original article’s overall meaning.

 

In addition to this, the Ways to Succeed in Google News also highlights a few best practices that News Publishers have to keep in mind before publishing a story.

• • Descriptive and Clear Titles

• • Displaying accurate date and time using structured data

• • Avoid duplicate, rewritten or scraped content
• • Using HTTPS for all posts and pages

 

The advice and tips provided in the document can help news websites affected by the latest Google algorithm update to recover.

Also, Google has put impetus to the transparency of the News Publisher, which has to do more with the search engine giant’s EAT Guidelines.

The new Google News guidelines ask publishers to be transparent by letting the readers know who published the content.

The advice Google gives is to include a clear byline, a short description of the author, and the contact details of the publication.

According to Google, providing these details to the readers and to the Google bot can help in filtering out the “sites or accounts that impersonate any person or organization, or that misrepresent or conceal their ownership or primary purpose.”

Google also warns news publishers not to engage in link schemes that are intended to manipulate PageRank of other websites.

The speculation about an update was in the air for the last few days. The websites that were hit the worst include, ABC’s WBBJTV, FOX’s KTVU and CBS17.

Google announced earlier that every year, it rolls out around 500–600 core algorithm updates. In addition to this, there are broad core algorithm updates that Google rolls out three to four times a year.

These updates come with a major rank shift in the SERP with a few websites seeing a spike in organic rankings while others experience a dip.

However, the update made drastic changes to the results shown in the featured snippets.

In addition to the news websites, the “Google Newsgate Algorithm Update 2019” has also affected blogs in niches such as sports, education, travel, government, and automotive sites.

According to the Google Algorithm Weather Report by MozCast, the climate was rough during the 9th and 10th, suggesting an algorithm update.

 

The graph has shown significant fluctuations in the weather, especially during January 5th and 6th. After a few regular days, the weather deteriorated further, which may be a signal of two separate Google Algorithm updates within the same week.

SEO communities are rife with discussions about the update as many websites were affected by the algorithm update.

“Travel – All whitehat, good links, fresh content, aged domain, and all the good stuff. Was some dancing around Dec and then, wham, 3rd page,” said zippyants a Black Hat Forum member on Thursday.

“Big changes happening in the serps since Friday for us. Anyone noticing an uptick or downward slide of long-tail referrals? First time we’ve seen much since the big changes in August/September,” asked a user SnowMan68 via Webmaster World.

“Yes! Today, the signals are quite intense. Probably going on for past 4 days No changes seen on the sites though,” answered a Webmaster World user arunpalsingh to one of the questions asked in the forum.

In addition to this, the Google Grump Tool from AccuRanker has also suggested a “furious” last two days. This may be an indication that the algorithm update was rolled out in phases.

 

According to our early analysis, the sites that were affected by Google’s first Algorithm Update in 2019 are the ones that publish questionable news.

Also, we saw a nosedive in the traffic of news sites that rewrote content without including any newly added values.

Algoroo, another Google Algorithm tracker, has added TechCrunch and CNBC to the top losers list. This, yet again, stands as evidence to our understanding that the update is intended for News websites and blogs of different industry niches.

In 2018, Google rolled out the infamous Medic Update targeting wellness and YMYL websites. The impact was huge and many websites that were affected are yet to come to terms with the traffic loss.

We found that the sites impacted by the Medic Update were lacking the E.A.T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) quality signals. A few days after this, Google confirmed the same saying the update had nothing to do with user experience.

Some websites hit by the Medic Update made remarkable comebacks after the algorithm update in November. The sites that recovered from the Medic Update created quality content based on the Google EAT guidelines.

The rollout of the update was completed on Sunday as all the sensors had cooled down by Monday. We will soon do a detailed analysis of the sites that were affected by the “Google Newsgate Algorithm.”

This will help you understand why the sites were affected and how they can recover from the latest Google Algorithm update.

1. Panda
2. Penguin
3. Hummingbird
4. Pigeon
5. Mobile
6. RankBrain
7. Possum
8. Fred

Targets of Panda

• Plagiarized or thin content
• Duplicate content
• Keyword stuffing
• User-generated spam

Panda’s workflow

Panda allocates quality scores to the pages based on the content quality and ranked them in SERP. Panda updates are more frequent; hence, the penalties and recoveries as well.

How to adapt

Keep regular track on web pages to check for plagiarized content and thin content or keyword stuffing. You can do that by using certain quality checking tools like Siteliner, Copyscape.

Targets of Penguin

• Links with over-optimized text
• Spammy links
• Irrelevant links

Penguin’s workflow

It works by lowering the ranks of sites with manipulative links. It checks the quality of backlinks and degrades the sites with low-quality links.

How to adapt

Keep tracking your profile growth by the links and run regular checks on backlinks to audit the quality of the links. You can use certain tools like SEO SpyGlass to analyze your sites and eventually help you adapt to Penguin’s update.

Targets of Hummingbird

• Low-quality content
• Keyword stuffing

Hummingbird’s workflow

It helps Google to fetch the web pages as per the complete query asked by the user instead of searching for individual terms in the query. However, it also relies on the importance of keywords while ranking a web page in the SERPs.

How to adapt

Check your content to increase the research on keywords and focus on conceptual queries. Additionally, search for related queries, synonymic queries, and co-occurring words or terms. You can easily get these ideas from Google Autocomplete or the Google Related Searches.

Targets of Pigeon

• Perilous on-page optimization
• Poor off-page optimization

Pigeon’s workflow

Pigeon works to rank local results based on the user’s location. The update developed some ties between the traditional core algorithm and the local algorithm.

How to adapt

Put in hard efforts when it comes to off-page and on page-SEO. It is best to start with some on-page SEO, and later you can adopt the best off-page SEO techniques to rank top in Google SERPs. One of the best ways to get yourself listed off-page is in the local listings.
Also, Read>>How to Top-Rank Your Business on Google Maps Search Results

Targets of Mobile update

• The poor mobile user interface
• Lack of mobile-optimized web page

Mobile update workflow

Google mobile-friendly update aims to rank web pages at the top of the SERP that supports mobile viewing and downgrade web pages that are unresponsive or unsupportive on mobile devices.

How to adapt

Tweak the web design to provide better mobile usability and reduce the loading time. Google’s mobile-friendly test will help you to identify the changes to cope up with various versions of the mobile software.

Also, Read>> 6 Common Web Design Mistakes That Hurt Search Engine Optimization of Your Website

Targets of RankBrain

• Poor user-interface
• Insubstantial content
• Irrelevant features on the web page

RankBrain workflow

RankBrain is a machine learning system released to understand the meaning of the queries better and provide relevant content to the audience.

It is a part of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm. It ranks the web pages based on the query-specific features and relevancy of a website.

How to adapt

By conducting competitive analysis, optimize the webpage for comprehensiveness and content relevancy. You can use tools like SEMRush, Spyfu to analyze the concept, terms, and subjects used by the high-ranking competitor web pages. This is a perfect way to outmatch your competitors.

Targets of Possum

• Tough Competition in your target location

Possum’s workflow

The search results are provided depending on the searcher’s location. The closer you are to a given business, you are more likely to see it at the top of the local search results. Fascinatingly, Possum also provided the results of well-known companies located outside the physical city area.

How to adapt

Increase your keywords list and do location-specific rank tracking. Local businesses should focus on more keywords because of the volatility Possum brought into the SERPs.

Fred’s workflow

This update targets the web pages violating the guidelines of Google webmaster. The primary web pages affected by this are blogs containing low-quality content and majorly targeting the audience to make revenue by driving traffic.

How to adapt

Remove thin content by analyzing it through Google Search Quality Guidelines. If you’re allowing advertisements on your pages, make sure they’re on the pages with high-quality and useful content for the users. Please don’t try to manipulate Google into thinking that your page is high-quality content, when it is, instead, full of affiliate links.

 

What is the latest Google Algorithm Update, is a question that SEOs search the most nowadays. The major reason for the “Google Algorithm Update” becoming such a trending keyword is due to the uncertainty caused after the rollout of each update. Google rolls out hundreds of core algorithm updates each year and the search engine giant announces a few that have a far-reaching impact on the SERP.

Each time Google updates its algorithm, it’s moving a step forward in making the search experience easy and more relevant to the users. However, as SEO professionals, we recommend to use white hat techniques

This update had hit hundreds of websites, and the reason behind it was the fact that these websites had multiple pages filled with huge keyword permutations. The update was framed to catch the long-tail keywords used with permutations because search results prefer pages with long-tail keywords. The majority of the sites hit by Maccabees are from e-commerce, affiliate websites, travel, and real estate sites.For instance, a travel agency has multiple keywords, and a few of them that were flagged are as follows:

1. Low-cost holiday package to Switzerland.
2. Cheap Switzerland holiday package.
3. Low-cost tickets to Switzerland.

Similarly, an affiliate website has multiple pages containing the following:

1. Avoid mosquitoes at home.
2. Get rid of mosquitoes.
3. Wipeout mosquitoes.
4. Wipeout mosquitoes fast.

You may guess why they were aiming for long-tail keywords and why SEO had such keen eyes for those keywords. Because, though they seem similar, all keywords are huge traffic drivers.

There is no formal name for this update. However, informally, in remembrance of Hanukkah and the search community, Barry Schwartz of SERoundtable, called it ‘Maccabees.’

A Google spokesperson stated that the changes in the algorithm are meant to make the search results more relevant. The relevance may come from on-page or off-page content, or sometimes, both.

• Unlike the daily algorithm updates, the broad core update comes with a far-reaching impact.
• Fluctuation in ranking positions can be detected for search queries globally.
• The update improves contextual results for search queries.
• There is no fix for websites that were previously hurt by Google update.
• The only fix is to improve the content quality.
• Focus more on Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness (E.A.T)

To know more about what is a broad core algorithm update, check our in-depth article on the same. We will provide you with in and out of the new update in a short while. Please keep a tab on this blog.

If you’ve been using Google for the last two decades, then the transformation of Google Search may have amazed you. If you don’t think so, just compare these two screenshots of Google SERP from 2005 and 2019.

Google started making major changes to the algorithm, starting with the 2012 Penguin update. During each Google Algorithm Update, webmasters focus on factors such as building links, improving the content, or technical SEO aspects.
Even though these factors play a predominant role in the ranking of websites on Google SERP, an all too important factor is often overlooked!

There has been a sea of changes in the way Google displays its search results, especially with the UI/UX. This has impacted websites more drastically than any other algorithm update that has been launched to date.

In the above screenshot, the first fold of the entire SERP is taken over by Google features. The top result is Google Ads, the one next to it is the map pack, and on the right, you have Google Shopping Ads.

The ads and other Google-owned features that occupied less than 20% of the first fold of the SERP Page now take up 80% of it. According to our CTR heatmap, 80% of users tend to click on websites that are listed within the first fold of a search engine results page.

This is an alarming number as ranking on top of Google SERP can no longer guarantee you higher CTR because Google is keen to drive traffic to its own entities, especially ads.

Since this is a factor that webmasters have very little control over, the survival of websites in 2022 and beyond will depend on how they strategize their SEO efforts to understand the future course of the search engine giant.

When talking about how Google Algorithm Updates might work in 2022, it’s impossible to skip two trends – the increasing number of mobile and voice searches. The whole mobile-friendly update of April 2015 was not a farce, but a leap ahead by the search engine giant that would eventually make it a self-sustained entity.

We will discuss voice and mobile search in detail a bit after as they require a lot of focus.

Google is both a content curator and a search engine. However, moving forward, Google will be less of a search engine and more of a content curator. Still wondering how Google is curating content to its users? Here are a few examples:
Just Google “Hepatitis B” and you will find a knowledge graph on the right that is autogenerated by Google.

This particular information about Hepatitis B is generated by Google’s Learning Algorithm by stitching together data from authority websites. According to Google, this medical information is collected from high-quality websites, medical professionals, and search results.

With Google being the repository of important web pages that users value, you can expect more such self-curated content in Google search. It’s interesting that even the creative used in such results are created by Google. Another example of Google doing self-attribution.

Here is Another Example of Google Curating Content
A Google search for “how tall is the Eiffel tower?” will display a knowledge card with the exact answer to the user’s question, without any attribution.

But further scrutiny into the SERP, especially the right-side Knowledge Graph, will help you find out how Google came up with the answer.

This is an indication of how critical the structured data is. However, structured data is a double-edged sword as Google uses it on SERP (like in this case) with zero attribution.

The way Google is moving ahead seems like the algorithms will scatter ads clandestinely within the SERP to direct more traffic to promoted/sponsored content. Basically, Google is taking data from your website, repurposing it for the knowledge graph, and getting monetary benefits, which ultimately do not reach you. However, taking into account Google’s current position, this has to be seen as a desperate move!

Google was petrified by the decrease in the click-through rates received for results on mobile devices and did everything possible to get their million-dollar advert revenue back on track. And one such step was what we now call Mobilegiddon. The mobile-first indexing approach introduced in 2015 was a silent threat to websites asking them to either toe the line or be ready to be pushed to the graveyard (second and following pages of Google search.)

The perk that Google earned from this strategy is that it saved the amount of time and effort to update its algorithm to crawl and render both mobile and desktop versions of websites. So, with mobile-first indexing in place, Google decided to use mobile-first UI/UX.

Here is how

(Screenshot of the Mobile-first design of Google)

Google’s Algorithms will keep on ensuring websites that feature on the first page of its search provide the best accurate information for the users. Implementing this across the web will ensure that users only get the best results on SERP.
Online reviews, social mentions, brand mentions, and general sentiments across the web will play a vital role in ranking websites on Google.

UGC and Sponsored are the two new link attributes that have become part of the Google ranking factors. A majority of the sites use the no-follow as the default attribute for external links. This is one reason why Google introduced the two new link attributes. Moving forward, no-follow and UGC links will start passing link juice. Even though the importance of these links is not as significant as the do-follow, they definitely play a vital role.

When it comes to the promoted links, Google will ensure that its algorithm completely ignores passing the link juice. Google has asked the webmasters to start using these attributes as early as possible as they have become a part of the Google Ranking Factors in March 2020.
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