Matthew Widdop
Matty is a Junior SEO Executive at Intelligency, helping our clients to improve their digital performance. Matty is currently studying for his Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer apprenticeship and has completed a Sport Journalism Degree at the University of Huddersfield.
Google has announced their latest core update has finished rolling out on September 3rd lasting for a total of 19 days.
Target of Google Update
The Google core update was designed to show users genuinely useful content, rather than content that was specifically designed to meet SEO requirements according to John Mueller of Google Search Relations.
“Today, we launched our August 2024 core update to Google Search. This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.”
Google wants to deliver the best experience to their users and believe having high quality content is the priority in improving search rankings.
The update was also set to target small and independent sites that had been negatively impacted by the latest helpful content update in September 2023.
“This latest update takes into account the feedback we’ve heard from some creators and others over the past few months. As always, we aim to connect people with a range of high quality sites, including ‘small’ or ‘“’independent’ sites that are creating useful, original content on relevant searches. This is an area we’ll continue to address in future updates.”
Impact of Google Update
Google users were urged to wait until after the update had finished rolling out to see what impact it may have had to their site, during the update Google search results can be volatile. Expectation is that sites with high quality content will see improvements in traffic performance over the coming weeks and months.
If a site is negatively impacted by the latest core update, Google has, in the past, offered a list of questions to consider when evaluating content.
- Does the content provide original information, reporting, research or analysis?
- Does the content provide a substantial, complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
- Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
- If the content draws on other sources, does it avoid simply copying or rewriting those sources and instead provide substantial additional value and originality?
- Does the headline and/or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content?
- Does the headline and/or page title avoid being exaggerating or shocking in nature?
- Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
- Would you expect to see this content in or referenced by a printed magazine, encyclopaedia or book?
Future of Google Updates
Google releases core updates every few months, this allows Google to constantly monitor and improve the way their search algorithm works and display the best quality content to end users. If your site has been negatively or positively impacted by the latest core update, future updates can help boost traffic if you continue to improve content.
