The update is Google’s first algorithm update in 2023 and the first in more than six months.
Google have announced that it has rolled out its first algorithm core update since September 2022. Although it can take up to 2 weeks to fully launch worldwide, webmasters are already noticing changes to their organic rankings.
What to do if your organic positions decrease:
Google has previously provided advice on what to do if your website is negatively impacted by core algorithm updates. The key recommendation is not to panic. This is because negative rankings may not necessarily mean that there is anything wrong with your web pages.
In fact, Google have said, “We know those with sites that experience drops will be looking for a fix, and we want to ensure they don’t try to fix the wrong things. Moreover, there might not be anything to fix at all.” Google added, “There’s nothing wrong with pages that may perform less well in a core update.”
If your website has recorded a decreased organic ranking, it might simply be down to increased competition. Google provided an insightful analogy relating to top movies to explain this:
“One way to think of how a core update operates is to imagine you made a list of the top 100 movies in 2015. A few years later in 2019, you refresh the list. It’s going to naturally change. Some new and wonderful movies that never existed before will now be candidates for inclusion. You might also reassess some films and realize they deserved a higher place on the list than they had before. The list will change, and films previously higher on the list that move down aren’t bad. There are simply more deserving films that are coming before them,” Google wrote.
Of course, at the same time, it could also be that something has dramatically changed on your website for the worse. If you have recently carried out some big on-site or off-site SEO work, it may be that these have worked against you.
If nothing has changed, the changes are that increased competition is behind your ranking drop-off. However, it could also be that, by the time of Google’s next algorithm update, your site fully recovers without making any drastic work.
Read more about Google Search’s core update and how it can impact your website.
In Summary:
Google regularly updates its core algorithms, so you should not be surprised by the news of the latest update. If you want to see if you have been negatively hit, we recommend keeping a close eye on our Google Analytics data.
Don’t forget, Google also recently launched site names and favicons on desktop searches. So, it’s been a busy few days for them!
We have previously produced a checklist explaining why a website may have received an organic ranking decrease. If your website has recently been negatively impacted, we recommend that you give it a read.
