Google September 2022 Core Update
WHAT’S THE STORY?
Every day, Google releases small updates designed to improve their search results. This includes changes to its ranking system, user interface and more. Several times a year, however, they release updates that might be “more noticeable” to their search algorithms and systems – these are referred to as Google’s core updates.
September was a busy month in terms of updates; Google released the September 2022 core update – the second core update this year. The update was released on the 12th of September, took two full weeks to roll out and came three days after another update (the helpful content update) finished rolling out.
Google is now becoming more certain of its assessment and does not deviate as much from the previous assessment. We know that this was a global update and affected all categories, ie., it wasn’t specific to any region, language, or category of web sites.
Today we released the September 2022 core update. We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://t.co/sQ5COfdNcb
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) September 12, 2022
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU.
September 2022 algo update and its impact.
Based on data from tracking tools, the September 2022 core update seems less widespread than previous updates.
In the event your site has been negatively impacted by this update, now is probably the time to start looking into analytics data to assess any pages that might have lost visibility, and create an action plan to improve the affected pages to regain rankings over time.
As always Google’s advice for sites negatively impacted by these updates is to focus on offering quality content.
“As explained, 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.”
For questions, concerns or any further information on Google updates contact our SEO team here at Fusion. We would love to hear from you!
September Product review update
WHAT’S THE STORY?
Another update that was released by Google is the September 2022 product review update. This is part of a series of updates aimed at targeting low-quality reviews.
Google announced on Twitter that the update began rolling out on September 20th, and like most updates, would take approximately 2 weeks to completely launch.
Today we released the September 2022 product reviews update for English-language product reviews. We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://t.co/sQ5COfdNcb
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) September 20, 2022
This follows the helpful content update which launched in August.
For sites that do not publish product reviews, this update will not affect you. Unlike a core update (as mentioned above) which impacts all search results.
Product Review Update Explained
This algorithm update is designed to award high-quality product review pages that share in-depth research and ‘penalise’ low quality product review pages – i.e., content that has little or no value to the user and that provides information users can find on manufacturer’s sites.
This update applies to websites that publish long-form product reviews; it does not apply to sites that sell products that customers can review. Customer reviews are not considered the same as product review articles.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU.
As the update is 100% rolled out, site owners may already see impact on product review pages.
Google adds:
If you see a change and wonder if it’s related to the core update or the product reviews update:
- If you produce product reviews, then it’s probably related to that.
- If not, then it might be related to the core update.
Google also revealed that the ranking signal introduced with the helpful content update will likely get stronger as other types of updates roll out (read more).
This means that this repetition of the product review update could potentially cause a greater impact than previous versions of updates.
It is also possible that product review pages not affected by previously updates will feel the effects of this September product review update, which may not be a bad thing as with every algorithm update, there is always an opportunity to improve rankings.
For more guidance on how to assess the impact of a product review update, see this article published on the Google Search Central Blog.
by Price Ndlovu
