What’s this about a Google Update on 17th May?
This is an extract from The Week In Search SEO Update for w/e 19th May 2017.
There have been rumours of a Google Update since 17th May as the SERPs tracking tools have gone a bit haywire. Google is staying silent.
#SEO #GoogleUpdates #OrganicSERPs
Rumours of a Google Update
Summary:
- Most of the major tracking tools reported volatile shifts in the Google SERPs mid last week, as can be seen in the MozCast Weather Report.
- Google (obviously) ignored all thoughts of there being an update to the algorithm.
- Some sites reported, or showed, significant traffic and visibility drops or wins.
- There is very little substantiated fact about this rumoured update.
How to check for a Google Update:
- As with every update, check your rankings, check your visibility, check your traffic and conversions.
- If not affected, carry on as normal, but pay attention to what may have caused this.
- If affected, start to identify if if affects certain terms, or pages, or if it is wholesale.
- Once pages / terms isolated, start to identify the reasons for those shifts, especially if you have been over-concentrating on one particular SEO element.
- Generally, optimise everything equally and reasonably well, but don’t over-optimise anything, if at all possible – use our Basic SEO Guide to help.
- Contact me to discuss this, or for help with implementation.
Google Update Discussion:
It seems like *something* happened last week, but no-one is quite sure what. There was likely an update to a portion of the algorithm, or a correction / adjustment to a small part. This is why there was volatility in the rankings, but only a few sites appear to have been affected.
Naturally, webmasters operate on suspicion and rumours – even confirmed Google updates often still leave a lingering thought of “what happened there”.
Usually, Google will ignore update rumours until it announces there may have been an update but they “update the algorithm over 500 times a year”, so it is business as usual..
