On 25^th May 2022 Google announced the release of a new broad core algorithm update:

As with recent updates the stated rollout period is set to be around 1-2 weeks, meaning a likely date of completion at some time during w/c 6^th June.

As the name suggests, broad core algorithm updates are designed to be a general “refresh” of Google’s algorithmic ranking processes and are not intended to target any particular website niches or areas of organic search. Websites can see a change in ranking performance as a result of updates, both positive and negative, but it’s also possible to see a negligible impact.

Within the Search Central blog on the most recent update, Google’s Danny Sullivan wrote:

Core updates are changes we make to improve Search overall and keep pace with the changing nature of the web. There’s nothing in a core update that targets specific pages or sites. Instead, the changes are about improving how our systems assess content overall. These changes may cause some pages that were previously under-rewarded to do better.

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/05/may-2022-core-update

Websites may be positively or negatively impacted by an update, but regardless of this the official advice remains the same. In summary, there’s nothing specific that webmasters need to do in response, and the focus should remain on creating “quality content”. In Google’s own words:

Pages that drop after a core update don’t have anything wrong to fix. This said, we understand those who do less well after a core update change may still feel they need to do something. We suggest focusing on ensuring you’re offering the best content you can. That’s what our algorithms seek to reward.

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2019/08/core-updates

With the last core algorithm refresh released in late November 2021, and updates appearing to be pushed out on a rough 6 monthly schedule, it’s highly likely that another similar update will take place in late 2022.

If you found this update useful, check out our latest blog posts for the latest news, and if you’re interested in finding out more about what we can do for your brand, get in touch with the team today.

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In our latest report, we take a look at which big brands are putting their personal touch on the wallpaper and paint market; delving into organic visibility and performance both for key market players and the ones-to-watch using our proprietary Share of Voice tool, Natural Edge.

Some of the insights you can discover include:

• Brand table – top 50 brands with highest share of voice
• Share of voice at a product category level
• Keyword opportunities – which keyword clusters have seen the biggest growth areas over the last 12 months?
• Keyword losers – which brands have seen the biggest decline over the last 12 months?

Market leaders like Wilko, B&Q, and Homebase prove their worth as household names, and smaller luxury labels like Farrow & Ball and Little Greene hold strong in the ranks for their niches. Specialist brands Dulux and Crown maintain a steady position for paints, while I Love Wallpaper proves worthy of the name by maintaining a presence across all wallpaper categories.

What could our report findings mean for your brand?

There’s clearly a lot of fluctuation within rankings for the Wallpaper and Paint sector, and new brands entering the market are able to gain visibility. Consequently, there’s plenty of opportunity for existing brands and challenger brands to optimise their site content, improve their SEO foundations, and generate links from reputable publishers to boost visibility and drive conversions.

If you’re interested in finding out more about how we can help you gain visibility in the SERPs within the beds and mattresses category get in touch here. 

Join Fusion’s SEO team as we round up last month’s major industry updates.

AI Generated Content Is Against Google Guidelines

In a recent Google Search Central SEO office-hours hangout, Search Advocate John Mueller weighed in on the widely discussed topic of GPT-3 AI writing tools and, more broadly, the nature of automatically generated content.

Mueller says that any content written by AI is considered as automatically-generated, which is against Google guidelines and could lead to a manual penalty. Here is the full response given:

“If you’re using machine learning tools to generate your content, it’s essentially the same as if you’re just shuffling words around, or looking up synonyms, or doing the translation tricks that people used to do.

My suspicion is maybe the quality of content is a little bit better than the really old school tools, but for us it’s still automatically generated content, and that means for us it’s still against the Webmaster Guidelines. So we would consider that to be spam.”

Soon after this conversation, the Webmaster Guidelines were updated to provide more clarity on this subject. Within the Quality Guidelines section, “Automatically generated content intended to manipulate search rankings” is now listed as a technique to avoid:

It is not clear if Google’s algorithm has the ability to detect auto-generated content, however, Mueller did say that “If we see that something is automatically generated, then the webspam team can definitely take action on that”.

Google Rolls Out Conversions Migration Tool For GA4

Google has rolled out a conversion migration tool allowing you to import your existing goals from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4. This can be accessed within the GA4 settings screen, in the Setup Assistant tab, under the Conversions section.

In short, the migration tool allows you to quickly recreate goals from a connected Universal Analytics property as conversion events within a GA4 property.

Charles Farina provided a good post about this on Twitter, along with screenshots of where to find it and what to expect:

A step-by-step guide on how to use the tool is below:

1. In Google Analytics, click Admin.
2. In the Account column, make sure that your desired account is selected. (If you only have one Google Analytics account, it will already be selected.)
3. In the Property column, select the Google Analytics 4 property that currently collects data for your website.
4. In the Property column, click Setup Assistant.
5. Under Conversions, go to Import existing goals from your connected Universal Analytics property, and click Get started.
6. In the Import existing goals from your connected property panel, select which goals you’d like to recreate as conversion events in your new Google Analytics 4 property.
7. Click Import selected conversions in the top right.

Data Studio Now Supports Discover & Google News Traffic

The Google Search Console connector for Data Studio can now retrieve traffic data for Google Discover and Google News. Within the data source connection settings, here’s how this can be added:

More information on how to monitor search traffic in Data Studio – including detail on the new connectors – can be found in this Google Search Central Blog titled ‘Monitoring Search traffic (and more!) with Data Studio’.

March 2022 Product Reviews Update Finished Rolling Out

The third version of the product reviews update which began rolling out on the 23^rd of March, has now officially completed. Google announced on the 11^th of April that the March 2022 Product Reviews Update had finished rolling out, taking 19 days to complete.

As previously mentioned in last month’s blog – this set of algorithm updates aims to improve how Google Search ranks product reviews; prioritising in-depth, authentic content based on feedback, internal testing, and an evaluation process.

If you found this update useful, check out our latest blog posts for the latest news, and if you’re interested in finding out more about what we can do for your brand, get in touch with the team today.

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