A look into Google’s 2023 Core Update
Hi everyone,
Welcome back to Mastering Marketing. This week we're firstly going to look at some big news in the world of social media and SEO.
And then we'll have a think about the ever-controversial topic of clickbait - why it works, how to leverage it and much more. So, let's get started...
X/Twitter Is Shutting Down Circles Next Month
X's decision to shut down its Circles feature, just over a year after its launch, comes as no surprise following a series of glitches that undermined its core purpose of enabling selective sharing. The biggest mishap earlier this year, which inadvertently exposed private tweets to the public, raised significant concerns about user privacy and the platform's ability to maintain data security. I don't feel this is any great loss but it's worth keeping an eye on if and how X plans to reintroduce private communities in the future.
George R.R. Martin Among 17 Authors Suing Over ChatGPT
George R.R. Martin and 16 other famous authors are suing OpenAI for using their books to train ChatGPT. They claim that OpenAI is infringing on their copyrights and stealing their creative work. This could have major implications for the future of AI and literature. What do you think? Should OpenAI be allowed to use any text as data for their AI? Or should they respect the rights of the authors who created those texts? Is this any different to a human being inspired by something they read?? Is it ok to build a new technology based on someone else's work without compensating them? This opens up many questions that need to be answered quickly.
????A look into Google’s August 2023 Core Update
On 22nd August, Google announced on Twitter that it was running a core algorithm update. Expected to take around two weeks to complete, it’s likely websites will have experienced changes in their SEO performance by now as a result.?
For some businesses, this rollout might lead to a drop in the rankings or organic traffic going to certain pages. However, before you hit the panic button, this article will help you understand exactly what these changes mean and the steps you can take to reduce any negative impacts.
What does a Google Core Update mean?
Google Core Updates are wholesale changes to the search engine’s algorithm and related systems. This means the methods and factors used by Google to review pages and set their rankings for keywords also change. Core updates are run to help the search engine deliver the best and most relevant content for each query.?
As Google explains itself in its developer guidelines, “Core updates are designed to ensure that overall, we’re delivering on our mission to present helpful and reliable results for searchers.” By doing these regular rollouts, Google ensures the highest quality content is being identified and rewarded in rankings, even if it’s brand new.
When was the last core update?
The last core update was run in March 2023. This was the first major algorithm update of the year and took 13 days and seven hours to complete. As a result of these changes, which were rolled out across all markets and languages, many websites experienced drop-offs in their keyword rankings and organic search traffic.?
There have also been two more minor updates to Google’s product review system in 2023. These are designed to prioritise and serve content that includes high-quality, in-depth reviews. Similarly to the core updates, this system refresh was designed to help searchers find genuinely helpful product information or insights researched and delivered by topic experts.?
In February’s review update, more languages were integrated into the system. This means Google’s evaluation algorithm now supports and ranks reviews in Spanish, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Polish.?
Then, in April, another update gave Google the ability to evaluate reviews of services, businesses, destinations and media such as films or games. It also saw a change in the search engine’s terminology, with these updates now being termed only ‘review updates’ rather than ‘product review updates’.?
These changes to the review system and March’s core update support the launch of Google’s helpful content system. This focuses on rewarding pages containing the most valuable information with higher keyword rankings. As a result, Google’s algorithm can deliver the best content experience to searchers.
What effect can core updates have?
Core updates are designed to reward the best quality content rather than penalise spammy pages or problem websites. However, the wholesale changes these algorithm and system updates bring about can see drop-offs in SEO performance even for fully-optimised sites.?
This doesn’t mean there are any fundamental problems with a website. Often drops in performance are a result of new content being reviewed and considered higher quality under Google’s refreshed evaluation system.?
However, at the other end of the spectrum, core updates can have a positive effect on a site’s SEO performance. So if you’ve been working on developing helpful content that’s optimised according to Google’s guidelines, you could see a sudden boost in your rankings and traffic, even if your website is relatively new.?
Whether you experience negative or positive effects on your SERPs as a result of August’s core update, it’s the perfect opportunity to identify and refresh your website content.
How to recover your SEO performance
If sometime between August and September you’ve noticed a drop in your organic search performance, then it could be a result of Google’s latest core update. The first step is not to panic!?
As we mentioned above, these dips in SERPs aren’t the result of your site becoming affected by spam, a virus or some other major problem. As Google says itself, ‘There’s nothing wrong with pages that may not be performing as well as they were before a core update.”?
In some cases, your pages may bounce back after the initial update. However, if you’re seeing a major drop in performance or were already considering wholesale changes to your content, then taking the below steps will help your website rebound.?
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Keep an eye on your KPIs
Rather than taking a digital machete to all your hard work and deleting pages en masse, you need to identify the specific SEO issues raised post-update. This means having a deep dive into your performance metrics to see what might be causing the dip.?
Pulling some reports on the following data points since the beginning of 2023 will help you see some common trends:?
This will help you identify whether the dips in performance align with the timing of core update changes. Knowing if this is the case and the metrics that were affected will help you put a plan in place to fix these specific issues.?
Review Google’s guidelines
When it comes to optimising your content, Google’s helpful content system guidelines are the go-to pointers. This is because they reflect the evaluation criteria the search engine’s algorithms use to rank content for each query.?
Review the EEAT quality rater guidelines, take a look at the list of self-assessment questions Google provides and set up alerts for any news releases. This will ensure you’re fully up-to-date on how to optimise your content for better rankings.?
Book Recommendation: Building a StoryBrand
by Miller Donald
Donald Miller writes a compelling story about how to create stories. In this book Donald uses the seven universal elements of powerful stories to teach us how to connect better with consumers. Storytelling has long been a critical art in marketing - from building trust to converting customers. This book is also really hard to put down - breaking the points into nice bite-size chapters. I strongly recommend you read this one.
For The Love of Marketing
S2 E1: International SEO with Martin Calvert
Whilst we're talking about Google's update and SEO, here's a throwback to an interesting chat with Martin! With over 15 years of experience in the world of digital marketing, Martin has built a reputation as one of the industry’s top experts in Global SEO, Digital PR, Content & Translation. In this episode, Martin shares his insights on what is international SEO, and how to create a successful marketing strategy around the same.
We're busy working on Season 3 - coming in Sep/Oct.
Subscribe to the podcast:
Stay tuned for more??
Here's an interesting read from my strategic marketing agency, SK
HOW TO OPTIMISE AN AFFILIATE MARKETING STRATEGY
Affiliate marketing is a strategy that’s growing in popularity with a range of marketers. When a business has negotiated a good commission contract with its affiliates, it can provide a good return for both parties. However, if the terms aren’t as expected or the affiliate doesn’t meet the business’s requirements, the strategy may not deliver its return on investment.?
However long you’ve been working on or using an affiliate marketing strategy, it’s likely it will need optimising at some point. This article will give some steps you can take to continue getting the best results on your affiliate activity.
Thanks for reading!
I hope you found this week’s newsletter insightful. If you did, I'd be really grateful if you could share it with your network and tag your friends & colleagues. I’d love to grow a community of MM readers so we can all learn from each other and deliver our best results.
I have been helping companies with their marketing from start-ups to global corporates for over 20 years and I’m also the author of 2 best-selling books in the field. Whether it’s growth, branding, performance, content marketing, SEO or many other areas, I have helped companies all over the world to deliver market-leading results and I'd love to help you if I can.
Simon
Marketing Director at ICS-digital ?? Global SEO, Digital PR, Multilingual Content & Translation ~ 100+ Languages | Non Executive Director, Trustee, Mentor, Awards Judge and Speaker
1 年I can confirm I have had a haircut since that podcast episode ??
'The ONE Social Media & Content JEDi + Internet Marketing Intelligence MAVERiCK' with a 'Do More with Less' attitude, Helping Businesses Drive The Future in the Times of Artificial Intelligence (a.k.a, the Ai)
1 年Excellent details and analogies Simon Kingsnorth. Loved the way you've cracked Google's doings in a very clear and concise way! Thanks. ?? And oh! I am gonna keep an eye on "For the Love of Marketing" just like "For the Love of Physics".