Google has confirmed that the October 2023 Core Update – the third core update this year – has completed rolling out. The update started on October 5, 2023, a day after the October 2023 spam update was released, and completed 14 days later on October 19, 2023.
Lots of volatility. This update, like most previous core updates, felt big in terms of the number of sites that saw ranking volatility and the complaints from SEOs I spotted over the rollout. We will try our best to do the data provider analysis, but with two big confirmed updates rolling out at the same time, it might be hard.
The update seemed to have caused significant movement in the search rankings from October 10 through October 12 and then again over this past weekend. But again, that is just based on what I am watching, not based on data from any data source.
Why we care. Google algorithm updates are critical for all brands, businesses, and organizations to be aware of because they can impact how your site performs in search results. Any change in rankings from a core update – positive or negative – can impact your organic traffic, conversions and revenue.
Knowing when Google makes these updates gives you something to point to in order to understand if it was something you changed on your website or something Google changed with its ranking algorithm.
What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update in the past:
There aren’t specific actions to take to recover. A negative rankings impact may not signal anything is wrong with your pages.
Google has offered a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update.
Google said you can see a bit of a recovery between core updates but the biggest change would be after another core update.
Previous core updates. Here’s a timeline and our coverage of recent core updates:
The August 2023 core update was on August 22nd and ended on September 7.
The March 2023 core update was on March 15th and ended on March 28th.
The September 2022 broad core update was less impactful than previous core updates and finished on Sept. 26.
The May 2022 broad core update was a significant and fast update.
The June 2021 core update, which was slow to roll out but a big one.
Other recent Google algorithm updates. Google is finished rolling out the October 2023 spam update, which took two weeks to complete. So this October 2023 core update and the October 2023 spam update will overlap. In September, Google rolled out the September 2023 helpful content update over a 14 day period.
You can read more about past Google updates here.
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