What is Core Update?
Google Core Updates are major changes to Google’s search algorithm. These updates, which are usually made several times a year, are aimed at improving the quality of search results. Core Updates can cause significant fluctuations in the search rankings of web pages, which has significant implications for SEO experts, web developers, and content creators.
When it comes to a Core Update, Google’s goal is to help users find the information they’re looking for faster and more accurately, and to improve the search experience overall. Algorithm updates include efforts to better understand users’ search intent, reward high-quality content, and filter out low-quality content. These updates can set new standards for ranking web pages by making changes to specific signals or factors.
Google can provide comprehensive guides to webmasters and content creators before and after announcing Core Updates. The guides usually include topics such as what types of content are preferred, what features are important for user experience, and how websites can be improved. However, it is difficult to determine exactly what has been changed after each update. Because Google does not share the full details of the algorithm for competitive reasons. In this way, the process of detailed examination of published articles, outputs obtained from the sample, and reports containing sectoral Core Update reviews is a situation we frequently encounter in this period.
Google Search Status Dashboard
Core Updates can sometimes have negative consequences for overseas chinese in europe data websites, as they can affect the rankings of web pages. Sites that experience a drop in rankings need to understand what factors need to be reviewed to recover from the effects of the update. SEO experts meticulously analyze what needs to be considered after the Core Update and potential strategies, and develop comprehensive improvement plans. These plans can basically include technical SEO adjustments, content updates, and work to improve the user experience.
The Purpose of Core Updates and Google's Goal
Core Updates made by Google basically serve the purpose of providing a more accurate SERP for users and improving the user experience. Considering this purpose, we can say that the main goals of Core Updates are generally the following.
Improving User Experience: Improving the user experience by increasing the speed, usability, and accessibility of web pages. Examples of these criteria include mobile compatibility and page load times.
Prioritize High-Quality Content: Prioritize content that is detailed, informative, and provides what users are actually looking for.
Reducing Spam and Low Quality Content: Identifying content that has been manipulated with black hat SEO tactics and does not add value to users, and demoting it in the rankings.
Keeping the Algorithm Fair and Current: Continuously updating the algorithm to reflect changes in the Internet and user behavior.
What Should Be Done After Core Update?
Once a Google Core Update is complete, website administrators and SEO professionals can evaluate their site's performance by following the steps below.
Review Your Performance in the Update Period: First, we should review your performance in the Core Update period. It will be beneficial to closely monitor the average positions in Search Console. We can also closely monitor the positions of the keywords that are closely monitored here in the target countries. In summary, analyze the changes in traffic and ranking performance using tools such as Google Analytics and Search Console.
Performance during core update period
Review Google’s Guidelines: Google usually releases a set of guidelines and recommendations with every update. We should carefully review these guidelines and focus on the areas highlighted by the update.
Improve Content Quality: Review your content in accordance with the EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) principles and improve if necessary. We can place imprints and relevant social media posts on the site that will demonstrate the author's competence in this field.
Check Out Technical SEO Criteria: Improve user experience by optimizing technical SEO elements like site speed, mobile compatibility, and internal linking structure.
Evaluate User Feedback: By collecting feedback about users' experiences on the site, adjustments can be made to better respond to user needs.
In addition to this information, we do not recommend taking quick action and making radical changes after the Core Update announcement. Because when Google announces a core update and states that it will take a few weeks to complete, you will have to wait at least a week until clear data is obtained. There may not be anything to report during this time. However, in this case, waiting and remaining silent until we report something concrete would be a wrong strategy. Before making any serious changes here, it would be one of the best methods to check your current situation and check compliance with Google guidelines.
What to Do When Reporting Google Updates to Admins
Google communicates Core Updates to webmasters and SEO professionals through a number of communication channels. These channels are fundamentally important for close monitoring and holistic approach.
Since core update periods can be uncertain, it is very important to be able to manage the process. In these cases, when informing your management or stakeholders about core updates, it is important to provide information within the general timing, goals and possible historical context of the updates.
When explaining the context of updates, we can reference the timeline and various themes of these updates. We can even relate SEO to these themes against past updates or the outputs that have occurred since the updates. We should always use the announcement of the core update to drive the conversation about the SEO team’s roadmap, ongoing work, and expectations for the update.
When Google announces the update, we can send an email to admins and include:
The date of the update and a link to Google's announcement.
It's a statement that Google releases such broad kernel updates several times a year.
Estimated time for the update (according to Google).
How the site has responded to the last update or two.
Highlighting any work (technical, content, etc.) that may impact this update.
We can emphasize that sometimes there may be situations where we can report early actions, and that the current email is awareness-focused.
In the middle of the update or when the first results are in, we should communicate the update information in the same email. This communication will keep managers up to date on the status while reinforcing our work. Then we can start new conversations around performance.
When starting new conversations, I try to present the following topics:
Re-specifying the start and expected end date of the core update.
Adding a statement that there will be post-release actions after the update is completed.
Providing information about actions and next steps after the update is completed.
Presenting metrics showing the positive/negative impact of the update (including following competitors).
The current status of the Core Update with images.
Results of the projects on the site that the SEO team is working on.
Incorporating existing work that aligns with these themes, as well as efforts in the process that could further improve performance with future updates.
Once the core update is complete, Google will announce it on Google Search Central and the Google Developers site.
This way, we can send summary notifications that include new results that support previous emails. Here, we should mention that after an update from Google, the results are not clear and there may be fluctuations in the SERP for a while. We can add that additional fluctuations are expected over the next 1-2 weeks.
