Google has witnessed phenomenal growth since its birth in 1998. Today, it dominates the search engine market with almost 92% of the market share. Google does not reveal its data, but experts estimate that it’s serving almost 63K users per second, resulting in 5.6 billion daily searches. It makes Google the sole winner; for now, none of the other search engines is capable enough to challenge Google’s dominance. Have you ever wondered what the hidden recipe behind Google’s phenomenal growth is?

Google has a dedicated team of researchers and experts continuously working to improve its ranking algorithms to enhance the user experience. The significant and broad changes in the Google algorithm that substantially impact SEO and web rankings are known as the Google core update.

A brief overview of Google Core Update

Google core updates refer to the broad and significant changes in the ranking algorithm to improve user experience by getting top-quality and related content on the top SERPs. Generally, Google releases a core update once every 2 to 3 months, and it gets public attention because of its severe impact on ranking.

Google core updates cause broad changes in its ranking algorithm; even a slight change in the Google ranking algorithm can impact millions of websites. That makes Google’s core update crucial for each e-business. Every core update penalizes the websites practicing certain black hat SEO tactics to ultimately rewards the deserving websites with quality content by ranking them on top SERPs.

Some of the well-known Google core updates are as follows,

• Google Penguin Update
• Panda Update
• Fred
• Hummingbird Update
• Pigeon
• BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers)
• RankBrain update
• Medic
• Possum
• Mobilegeddon
• Freshness

What makes Google core update different from other updates?

Besides the core updates, Google also makes minor updates multiple times a year, aiming to enhance the user experience by getting relevant and quality content on the top SERPs. But why we don’t talk about the minor updates as we do for core updates? Why do core updates grab public attention? The following key differences between the core update and the minor update make the core update a must-follow guide to secure businesses’ digital presence.

• The intensity of impact – Google minor updates impacts a fewer number of the indexed web pages than core updates. That’s why the core update gets public attention with its release.
• Announce – Google publicly announce the release of its core updates. However, you will never hear any announcement regarding any minor update release.
• Acknowledgment – Google only acknowledges the core updates; it does not acknowledge the minor updates.
• Naming – Google used to name its core updates. In contrast, Google does not name its minor updates.

Google changes multiple factors through its core updates to enhance the user experience. Tweaking multiple ranking factors at once causes a substantial impact on millions of web pages. The release of a core update grabs the web admins, SEOs, and digital marketers’ attention because of its huge potential to impact rankings.

Google core updates impact on SEO

Google core updates can immensely impact a website’s search engine optimization efforts. The core update refers to the broad changes made in the ranking signals to filter out the relevant and quality content for top SERPs. These changes are made broadly, while a minor tweak in the ranking signals can impact the SEO.

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the tactics used to improve a website’s structure, content quality, and user experience to get noticed by the search engine ranking algorithm ultimately. Search engines rely on multiple factors to analyze the quality and relevancy of a web page to trigger it against particular keyword-based queries for SERPs. Google core updates change these factors to improve the results for top SERPs further and ensure improved user experience.

A Google core update release impacts millions of web pages, whether positive or negative. The core updates are meant to penalize the websites practicing black hat SEO or lacking in particular areas to ensure quality user experience. And at the same time, it rewards deserving sites with quality content and user experience with improved rankings on SERPs. For instance, Google panda update penalized websites with thin content, impacting almost 11.8% of the queries. That means traffic for almost 11.8% of queries gets shifted from a particular cluster of the website to other websites. It indicates how a core update can reward and penalize different websites simultaneously.

One Google core update can affect more queries than others; the impact intensity can vary from one update to another. Some Google core updates are meant to do more than solely impact the queries and SEO. Some core updates even restructure the Google SERPs by updating the alternative listings on SERPs.

Alternative listings refer to the non-paid listings on SERPs like PAA (people also ask), knowledge graph panels, and search snippets. A Google core update can update (add, remove or modify) these alternative listings to improve users’ experience.

Symptoms of a Core update affected website

How do I know if my website got affected by the core update? There are the two major signs of a website that got negatively affected by the Google core update, as discussed below,

• A sudden decrease in ranking – A sudden decrease in a website’s ranking hints at the impact of Google’s core update. If your website has lost its ranking, it might get hurt by the recent Google core update. Keep tracking your site ranking through Google search console or any third-party tool. However, avoid instantly concluding. Track your website ranking for several days after the core update release as core updates impacts gradually comes into the picture.
• Drop in traffic – 68% of the clicks go to the first five results on the SERPs. A sudden drop in website traffic hints at the de-ranking of the site. Use Google Analytics to track traffic on your website. The core update might negatively impact your website if it has witnessed a sudden and significant drop in traffic.

Final Words | What is the Google core update?

This blog has thoroughly discussed the Google core update, what makes it different from minor updates, and signs of a negatively affected site through a core update.

Keep practicing the white hat SEO and say no to shortcuts to avoid being penalized by a Google core update. It’s rare to get penalized by a core update if you’re practicing white hat SEO and publishing detailed, well-researched, quality content supported by facts and figures.