What is Google’s Aug 1 Algorithm Update and has it Impacted You?
On August 1, Google released a major update called the ‘broad core algorithm update’. This is the third algorithm update of 2018 and many professionals in the online community have said that this is Google’s biggest update since Penguin back in 2012. Some websites have felt a major impact of the update while others haven’t been significantly affected.
The questions that people are asking after Google’s August update are: “What has changed?” and “What should be adjusted?” In this article, we’ll answer these questions.
Google’s Algorithm Update
The industries that have been affected the most by the new update are YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) followed by eCommerce websites. YMYL web pages dispense medical advice or financial advice.
YMYL websites like medical devices, nutrition and diet are very important to the search engine giant. Therefore, Google wants to enhance its ranking algorithm with regard to E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trust), author reputation, and site reputation. In other words, the YMYL websites are most affected by the update because Google wants to ensure that it is only ranking web pages that are written by professionals so that people don’t get harmful advice.
Changes in the Algorithm
When people asked Google what they should do to avoid the negative effect from the new update, the answer was “have great content” and the suggestion was to read Google’s Quality Rates Guidelines. Since this update is called the broad core algorithm update, it is clear that there isn’t anything in particular that SEO experts should adjust. Google’s intention with this update is to improve the search engine results for better quality.
Those who want to see how the update has affected them should check their rankings. If their website has been negatively impacted, there isn’t any specific fix that can give them their ranking back. The only thing they can do is improve the overall quality of the content on their website.
Some other interesting things we have found out about Google’s new update are:
* There aren’t any clear reports that show which rankings have been affected by Google’s algorithm update. Some SEOs have reported that local ranking have gone up and organic ranking are going down while others are reporting the exact opposite.
* Not all sites have been affected by the update, but it has had a major impact on the websites that were affected by the update. Some have dropped their rankings while others have gained several points in the search engine rankings.
* Both local results and organic results have been affected by Google’s algorithm update which means that both the local and organic ranking algorithms have been changed.
* Many medical and health website were impacted by the update, but these aren’t the only ones. There are several other websites that are impacted by the algorithm update. These include entertainment sites, online games sites, lyrics sites, e-commerce websites and more.
How to Fix
Based on the information and reports we have, it seems that if your website deals with health or medical-focused content, there’s a high chance that it has been hit by the new update. It seems that Google’s new algorithm is favoring actual experts or authority sites.
So now that quality and relevance is being evaluated by Google at the site-level, what should you do? As pointed out earlier, there is no particular fix that can get you your ranking back. Therefore, you should continue following best SEO practices to improve the quality of your website.
Quality can mean several things. For example, user experience, content quality, technical problems that lead to quality problems, advertising and more. Therefore, if your website has been affected by the Google’s broad core algorithm update, it is important for you to understand all the quality problems that your website may have and then create a solid plan for remediation.
You cannot recover from the impact in a month or two. Significant changes must be implemented to improve the quality on the website and there is no quick fix. You must focus on the long-term. Don’t roll back any change after a couple of weeks.
Alex at Healthy Links advises people who have been affected by Google’s new update to remove or update low-quality website content, fix broken links, media files and images and focus on building the authority of their website as a brand.