On June 3, Google started rolling out their new core update, and by June 8 the update was in full effect.
However, many quickly turned to Twitter and other online forums to figure out if the core update had any correlation to their drops in traffic, crawling, de-indexing of their site, and more. Let’s take a look at some key points.
What Is a Google Core Update?
Unlike major Google algorithm updates like Panda or Penguin, core updates are a little less intense, so they say. A lot of resources state that core updates don’t have any specific focus in mind, but are more along the lines of being considered Google’s regular oil change, where the company makes some needed adjustments to the system under the hood.
Changes and Unforeseen Side Effects of the Google Core Update
While there are some blurry lines in terms of what may have actually been changed in this recent update, it’s been said that one of the main points of the update was to introduce more diverse results in search, which Google announced on Twitter:
Have you ever done a search and gotten many listings all from the same site in the top results? We’ve heard your feedback about this and wanting more variety. A new change now launching in Google Search is designed to provide more site diversity in our results….
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 6, 2019
However, many webmasters have also seen some other changes that Google wasn’t kind enough to give warnings on.
A lot of these users headed straight to Twitter to share that they experienced some lags in URLs being crawled, while others expressed their concern at losing immense amounts of traffic:
Wowza, the @DailyMailUK SEO director said in a public forum that the site lost 50% of their traffic due to the June 2019 Google core update, and 90% drop in Google Discover https://t.co/fTrai95o9z pic.twitter.com/wSuHs3g0CN
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) June 6, 2019
Meanwhile, some even lost so much traffic that they are closing down completely.
Another thing that many site owners said they experienced was the de-indexing of their website. Google came out to say this was due to a bug on their end:
We’re aware of indexing issues that impacted some sites beginning on Friday. We believe the issues are mostly resolved and don’t require any special efforts on the part of site owners. We’ll provide another update when the issues are considered fully resolved.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) April 7, 2019
Are You Experiencing the Changes of the Core Update?
If you are seeing drops in traffic, and are looking to revamp your digital marketing, feel free to reach out to us today to see how our agency can help.
Also, while you’re here, be sure to check out more of our blog posts on Google’s recent updates:
