With Google’s last core update being in May and new ones taking place roughly every three or four months, another update is likely any time now, and Google’s John Mueller has shed light on why you shouldn’t waste time if you find your site negatively affected.
In a Google Webmasters hangout held on September 4, Mueller responded to a question about why sites that suffer as a result of a core update have to wait until the next core update to recover. Search Engine Land notes that historically, this has been true for Google algorithm updates like Panda (2011) and Penguin (2012).
Mueller’s response to the question can be seen at the 3:35 mark on the above video. He says that generally, sites do not have to wait until the next core update to remedy their situation. Instead, he recommends that sites continue to work in the direction they think they need to go in to recover, and that they should see:
“at least some incremental improvements”.
This is perhaps a reflection of how Google is now tweaking its algorithms a lot more regularly that it used to, and that although core updates still exist, they are less of a sudden overnight change than they used to be. Last year, Google revealed it had performed over 3,000 algorithm updates in 12 months, compared to roughly one a day at the start of the decade.
The days of wholesale, specific updates like Penguin and Panda appear to be over, with Google now seemingly trying to refine its results on an ongoing basis. The good news for businesses and other website owners is that this could mean they are less rocked by updates and, if they do suffer, they can start moving back in the right direction immediately.
Recent updates have also seen Google stop giving specific advice to webmasters, instead directing them to a general guidance page from August 2019 that cites a focus on content.
At Engage Web, we produce content designed to stand up to Google’s core updates and appeal to algorithms like the natural language-based BERT. For advice on how to attain and keep rankings, speak to us today.
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