Looking back to August, we saw the rollout of Google’s second core algorithm update of the year. Nearly a month on from the announcement, we’re going to take a recap of what the update included, what changes we’ve seen in the time since, and how this core update impacts brands like yours.

What do we know about Google’s core algorithm update?

Reliable and helpful results are the name of the game here, and that is why Google regularly utilises these core updates to ensure that the content shown to search users is actually relevant to their queries, contains genuinely useful information, and is written by the right people.

What does this mean for brands when an update is rolled out? These updates aren’t designed to target any particular page or website but instead improve the overall quality of search results by ‘judging’ content to a higher standard.

With that in mind, the second core update of 2023 made some updates to how sites are judged for their content, backlink profile, and technical foundation:

• Content – Is your content of sufficient quality? Is your content attributed to professional authors?
• Backlinks – Are there enough external backlinks coming into the site from relevant and authoritative sources?
• Technical foundation – Is all site content crawlable, accessible, and in line with Google’s best practice guidelines?

Impacts of the August 2023 core update

With almost a month under our belts since the start of the core algorithm rollout, the update was a big one but featured less varied volatility in the weeks from start to finish. Where the March 2023 update saw spikes in volatility, a key feature of the August update was a consistently heated period from start to finish.

Mordy Obstein from Semrush said, “When you look at it all together it’s a bit of a mixed bag. From a peak volatility point of view, August was more powerful than the March 2023 Core Update. However, if you look at the increase in rank volatility as compared to the pre-update volatility then the March 2023 Core Update seems more significant. However, even there, as mentioned, more than a few verticals saw more dramatic volatility increases with the most recent update.”

Many brands will be lucky to see minimal impact from the update, however, some of the most significant impacts have been felt within the retail industry for top 3 and top 5 positions, with the finance industry following behind. At the opposite end of the scale, the health niche saw the lowest fluctuations, according to Similarweb’s Shay Harel.

September 2023 Helpful Content update

In addition to the August Core Algorithm update, there is a Helpful Content updated underway in September, expected to be fully rolled out by the end of the month. This update will include some interesting developments for AI content, as well as tightening the rules on third-party content.

Third-party content 

This update to the guidance cracks down on the hosting of third-party content on main part of a website or on a subdomain. The purpose of this is usually to utilise the domain rating of the host site to improve ranking. This update means that websites hosting third-party content on their sites will be penalised.

AI content guidelines

Previously Google Helpful Content guidance on AI has stressed the prioritisation of human-written content over any AI-generated content, however, the September update has seen a key change in the wording of the guidance. Where the guidelines previously stated that content should be “written by people, for people” now just highlights that content should simply be “written for people”.

Has your site been hit?

If you feel that your site has been hit by either of these updates, it can be hard to know where to start to recover performance. It’s important to know that a hit doesn’t necessarily indicate wrong-doing on your part and your pages might be in great shape. Google stresses that a decrease in performance doesn’t have to mean there is anything to fix.

That being said, Google has offered some suggestions to think about when handling a knock from an algorithm update.

If you are in need of some expert support to help you navigate the impacts of these updates, the team at Fusion Unlimited can offer guidance and help assess where improvements could be made in line with Google’s recommendations.

Don’t feel like you are stuck in the dark, get in touch today and we can support your site’s recovery.