Google made its second major Core Update of 2020 in the context of the Coronavirus Pandemic. On May 4th they announced the update, calling it the ‘May 2020 Core Update’.
We know that broad core updates are designed to influence notable shifts within search engine results. We understand that these updates are somewhat of a big deal and will address many ranking factors of professional SEO – that’s why Google announces these updates.
How to understand the Google May 2020 Core Update
Google’s main mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Since it was first founded, Google has heavily focused on developing its property algorithms to further increase the efficiency and effectiveness of organizing information online.
The only way to really address broad core updates is to try and improve your content and website. If you can implement techniques to ensure you are helping Google to achieve its mission, you are moving in the right direction.
Google Core Algorithm Update
Google is updating its core algorithm in a major way approximately every few months – previously they implemented changes in this years’ January. The purpose of the update is to improve the quality of global search results.
Apart from Google algorithm broad updates, there are still many minor updates, called ”baby core updates” by Google officials. They are rolled out almost on a daily basis, as Google’s representatives announced recently.
The aim of the update is to improve the quality of the search results. The changes will certainly affect multiple websites – some will merely note minor variations in the overall results while others will see substantial decreases.
What categories were impacted by this update?
As with other recent core updates, it appears that the May 2020 core algorithm update disproportionately affected YMYL (your money, your life) websites, which can directly impact users’ health, happiness, safety, well-being, or financial security.
Some examples of categories with significant changes in organic visibility after May 2020 Google Algorithm broad update:
• nutrition and recipes
• fitness
• news
• drugs, alcohol, and rehab
• science and medical news
• banking and finance
• music and entertainment
• natural medicine
• history
Impact of the Google May 2020 Core Update
Changes in search behavior as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantines may also influence site ranking and search metrics. This can obscure the true effects of Google’s core update in May 2020. For instance, technology allowing people to work directly from home connections to companies that provide similar hardware products and solutions.
Meanwhile, some webmasters and SEOs have commented on the Google Core Update’s impact. There are many sectors and styles of the page according to the signs so far that can be expected to be impacted by the changes. There are changes in a wide range of industries – from recipes to tech, health, or even finance.
For example, several recipe website owners noticed significant traffic losses, with the main reason being the disappearance of URLs from the recipe carousel as well as the disappearance of rich snippets for recipe results. If you have been affected, try and see if your traffic and impressions (if they have dropped) re-stabilize once the Google May 2020 Core Update is fully rolled out. With this being the first update since the COVID-19 pandemic, the May 2020 Core update has the potential to be especially volatile.
What to do about the May 2020 Core Algorithm Update?
So, what do you do if the May 2020 core algorithm update affects your search ranking negatively? Many SEO experts will advise you to do nothing. This is partially right and it means you do not need to make major changes to your site necessarily.
For all the others, look at what pages have seen the losses, and look for ways to focus on optimizing existing pages or creating new pages with professional content writing that addresses a user’s search intent.
It is common for specific pages for specific keywords to see drops in traffic when Google makes changes to their core algorithm level — some websites face declines in organic traffic, while others notice gains.
Tips for the May 2020 Google Algorithm Update
• Check your website for any issues that could be negatively impacting your search rankings and traffic
• Upgrade your top content
• Make sure that Google sees you as an authority for the most important topics on your website
• Use structured data, and more specifically structured data that Google uses for SERPs
• Review your content promotion strategy.
In conclusion
Broad core algorithm updates are updates that affect search results more broadly because they alter the main search algorithm. Usually, a broad core algorithm update will be an adjustment of the weighting or order of importance of one or more search ranking factors. (There are over 200 ranking factors that Google uses to decide where to rank a given web page in the search results for each search query.)
All you can do is find ways to make your site more insightful, helpful, and of high quality. If your site is experiencing positive effects from the Google core update, there is a reason your site is being rewarded; keep up the good work!
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