On the 4th of May, 2020, Google Search Liaison declared the release a of a broad core algorithm update. All over the world, it has been labelled the May 2020 Core Update and it’s only one of the many broad core algorithm updates that Google releases about three to four times on a yearly basis. It is referred to as a ‘core update’ because it represents a large change to their algorithm. This implies that it impacts a large number of sites.

This May 2020 Core Update is the first major core update since COVID-19. In January, Google released the January 2020 Core Update. Frankly, a core update from Google was not expected by the SEO community. Not when the world is facing a global pandemic. It seems that Google had other plans.

With this update, it seems that Google’s new plan for ‘broad core updates’ is to update the algorithm on a large scale every two months.

These broad core updates are very different from the hundreds of updates made to the algorithm on a yearly basis. The broad core algorithm updates make significant fluctuations in the Search Engine Result Pages, causing webmasters to panic. This is the more reason why a broad core update at this point in time has caused a lot of panic in the SEO community. In this blog post, we will be taking a look at the impacts the Google May 2020 Core Update have made.

What impact did the Google May 2020 Update Have?

When Google pushes a broad core update, it takes about two to three weeks for it to be completely rolled out. However, the impact of this update began to get visible within the first few days. With the most recent update, SEO specialists and webmasters began to see the impact a lot faster than usual.

This new update has been characterised by greater volatility in search results. The most affected were the sites that used to rank up high in the SERPs or websites that were in the featured snippet. Regardless of this, A handful of well managed websites have improved their rankings.

The affected websites had a general issue of being too keyword centric. These websites focused more on having enough keywords to rank than on creating quality content.

The goal of the Google search engine is to get web surfers to solutions to their problems. This new update was done with the intent of making sure that users of google get results that are relevant to their query. Google has other ways to measure how useful a website is to the consumer. Bounce rate is one of the many signals.

Websites with improved rankings are those that align themselves with the thought process of the user. They are the ones that have the highest-ranking numbers on SERPs.

Most of the new high-ranking websites focus on the pages that make them money. They do this instead on trying to multi task and focus on multiple things at the same time.

What does this core update mean for publishers?

This core update should serve as a reminder to content creators and marketers to update their content constantly. Do whatever it takes to keep your articles up to date and valuable for the readers. Just like how Wikipedia is constantly updating its content. A study found out that sites that updated old content on a daily basis.

There have also been multiple reports of thin content losing positions.

Thin content can be defined as content with little or no added value. Some of the pages that lie into this classification are pages with duplicate content, automatically generated content, affiliate and scraped content, and doorway pages can be classified as thin content by Google.

However, whether these sites are losing positions because of their thin content or for other reasons have not yet been determined.

Nevertheless, what you can do as a publisher is to stay ahead of the curve by fixing your thin content. Add more relevant, in-depth content to pages that lack that. Add videos or a series of images.  Infographics can be very useful as well.  A particular study reveals that Sites with thin content saw a roughly 3 times higher likelihood of being affected in a negative way than a positive one.

 

In conclusion,

Google doesn’t really reward sites for any particular quality. Google ranks websites for how relevant they are to a search query. Google also uses the link signal to determine the popularity of a site and what it is relevant for.

A lot of webmasters are in panic mode at this point in time. There are looming fears that businesses will have to be closed because of this update. This is not totally true. This is just a phase in your digital marketing platform. So hang in here! It can turn around. The major reason is that Google goes on to analyze the results of the updates in a bid to be sure that the update has not adversely affected genuine websites. So, if you are certain that your website is legitimate, do not worry. There will be a change very soon!

The entire world is changing before our very eyes and the online world—as far as Google Search is concerned—is trying to catch up in real-time. Moreover, while Coronavirus search trends are spiking, search terms related to tourism, travel, in-person events and live-entertainment are all down. These search trends will most likely shift yet again over time as the pandemic improves.

In the meantime, Google recommends that you keep creating relevant content as always. Stop trying to beat Google in the SEO game. Place premium on making great and relevant content on your website. The goal of Google’s SEO is to make relevant content get to users that need it.

If you keep doing this, you will get the best out of Google’s SEO Core Updates.