As with all technology, updates are an expected and necessary part of life. There are software updates to add features, and security updates that patch discovered flaws, and many others.
When it comes to Google search, updates are also something that is necessary to provide an effective search experience. It should also be expected that Google will update its search engine systems and algorithms.
It should also be expected that your website content and formatting should be checked regularly to help ensure it is performing well as Google performs updates and makes changes.
Let’s take a look at some of the recent Google updates now and see what they were about, what Google said they addressed, and what impact they had.
Recent Updates: April 2023 Reviews Update | March 2023 Core Update | February 2023 Product Reviews Update | December 2022 Link Spam Update | December 2022 Helpful Content Update | October 2022 Spam Update | Google Helpful Content Update | September 2022 Core Update | Product Reviews Update
The April 2023 Reviews Update
What it Was About
On April 12, 2023, Google released the April 2023 reviews update to their reviews system. Currently, this system applies to the following languages globally: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Polish. At the time, no estimate was given for how long the update to this system will take. The reviews system aims to better reward high quality reviews, which is content that provides insightful analysis and original research and is written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well.
What it Addressed
The reviews system is, according to Google, “designed to evaluate articles, blog posts, pages or similar first-party standalone content written with the purpose of providing a recommendation, giving an opinion, or providing analysis.” Notably, this system only applies to those sites who contain first-party or personal reviews. It does not evaluate third-party reviews like those on a product on a shopping site, for example.
Specifically, product structed data was cited as being helpful to tell the review system if something is a product review, however the system does not depend on it.
What Impact it Had
Updates to the Google reviews system are typically very impactful and usually cause a lot of movement for the sites it hits. Much like their Core Updates, updates to the reviews system might target just one post or just the blog on the site, but it will subsequently impact the entire site.
It is worth noting too, that if a site does lose ranking and positions, it may not necessarily be because it did anything wrong. It may simply be because other sites gain positive traction from the update.
As Google and any actual SEO expert will tell you, if you follow best practices and stop trying to write content for a search engine, but rather for humans to benefit from, you will organically perform better.
The March 2023 Core Update
What it Was About
Google rolled out a core update on March 15th, 2023. It is reported to take about two weeks before it will finish, so look for it to finish about March 29th or 30th.
While that may be the case, initial effects can be felt almost immediately. Actually, there have been reports and observations of high volatility with this update already.
What it Addressed
Core updates aren’t really about any one particular facet of search. It’s about a broad refreshing of what users can find and presenting them with the best available content. This core update is no different. And like other updates like it, it is not a penalty: it promotes websites that have great useful content.
What Impact it Had
Within the first day of the update being launched, the SEO community is seeing big swings and changes already. We will not know the full extent until the update finishes of course, but it is important to review your content and check into any analytics to see what impact your sites may be experiencing. And you should always review Google’s recommendations for assessing your own content.
The February 2023 Product Reviews Update
What it Was About
On February 21, 2023, Google released the February 2023 product reviews update. This update applies to the following languages globally: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Polish. According to Google, it may be up to two weeks before this update is complete. This was the sixth revision of the product reviews algorithm. These updates are focused on pages that have reviews of products to ensure shoppers find the best information and make the best decision before purchasing a product.
What it Addressed
Google has a list of best practices they expect your product reviews to adhere to. You can check the full list out here. But this update in particular aims to “better reward” product reviews that are high quality. Google defines high quality as “content that provides insightful analysis and original research that is written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well.”
Unlike thin content that summarizes a bunch of products, the product reviews system works to help ensure that users see product reviews that share in-depth personal research and perspectives.
What Impact it Had
Google Product Reviews are typically very impactful and usually cause a lot of movement for the sites it hits. Much like their Core Updates, updates to the Product Reviews system might target just one post or just the blog on the site, but it will subsequently impact the entire site.
It is worth noting too, that if a site does lose ranking and positions, it may not necessarily be because it did anything wrong. It may simply be because other sites gain positive traction from the update.
As Google and any actual SEO expert will tell you, if you follow best practices and stop trying to write content for a search engine, but rather for humans to benefit from, you will organically perform better.
The December 2022 Link Spam Update
What it Was About
Google released the December 2022 Link Spam update on December 14th. This update will attempt to neutralize the impact of unnatural links on search results and is a global update that affects all languages.
This time, Google is deploying its own AI systems in this fight. SpamBrain, Google’s AI-based spam-prevention system, has been around for a while and was used to detect spam directly. With the December Link Spam update however, it can now detect both sites buying links, and sites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links.
What it Addressed
This update is directly targeting sites that have acquired links unnaturally, and will effectively negate any benefit either side derived from the link.
It has long been a common practice of buying or “trading” links to pass authority and help build what is commonly referred to as Domain Authority in the SEO community. Essentially, if a site that is an authoritative, trusted source and they have a link that follows to another site, that site would get a boost and would gain trust and Domain Authority as well. It should be noted that Google does not use Domain Authority itself; this is a metric developed by third parties in the SEO community. Google does use some undisclosed metric of measuring the authoritativeness of a site and domain, but not explicitly Domain Authority.
With the application of this update, links that are “unnatural” and not organically acquired will cease to pass that authority.
In their post about this update, Google mentioned: “As we have always emphasized, links obtained primarily for artificial manipulation of Search rankings are link spam. Our algorithms and manual actions aim to nullify these unnatural links at scale, and we will continue to improve our coverage.”
What Impact it Had
The direct impact of this update will be better understood once it completes, but with the proliferation of link buying that are used in an attempt to shortcut a blog or domain to higher search positions, webmasters should expect to see dramatic traffic swings if they are impacted.
If you believe your site is impacted by a Google spam update, the first thing you should do is contact your webmaster or hosting agency. A careful and thorough review of Google’s spam policies needs to be done. As this is an algorithmic system update, no manual action will be posted in your websites Google Search Console for you to take action on. Instead, if you experience dramatic traffic shifts in the coming days and weeks, you should take action to better align your SEO strategies with Google’s best practices.
The December 2022 Helpful Content Update
What it Was About
On December 5th, 2022, Google started the roll out of the December 2022 helpful content update. This update, similar to the initial Helpful Content Update in August, seeks to improve Google’s classification of sites that meet the criteria of helpful content and works across content globally in all languages. Google said that the rollout may take up to two weeks to complete.
Google Search’s helpful content system generates a signal used by their automated ranking systems to better ensure people see original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.
What it Addressed
The Helpful Content system is put in place to address content that is written “for search engines” rather than users in mind. And in some cases, even written by computers using artificial intelligence (AI).
Leveraging AI to generate content will become more and more risky to do, as clearly is indicated by Google’s system updates and stance against content that is not by humans, for humans.
What Impact it Had
The impact of the initial Helpful Content Update was devastating to some sites and blogs. In most cases, this was rightfully deserved as those sites had an established record of using automation to churn out thousands of posts and articles, monthly, sometimes weekly.
Expect to see similar fallout from this December 2022 update to Google Search’s Helpful Content system.
The October 2022 Spam Update
What it Was About
On October 19th, 2022, almost one year since the previous spam update, Google released the October 2022 spam update. Google said “This update is global and affects all languages. The update could take several days to complete.”
Google uses automated systems to detect search spam and, periodically, will update those systems. When they do, a Google Spam Update is usually announced.
What it Addressed
The intent of this update is to address clear offenders of Google’s spam policies and invoke penalties on those sites. You should consider the full write up of those spam policies in the link, but here are some of the spam techniques that are listed for an example:
- Hacked content
- Doorways
- Hidden text and links
- Keyword stuffing
- Machine-generated traffic
While these and others are specifically listed, Google will act on any forms of spam its systems detect.
What Impact it Had
The direct impact of this update will be better understood once it completes, but typically, sites that are impacted by Google’s spam updates are hit hard. We will continue to monitor the results of this update as it continues to roll out.
Additionally, webmasters should expect it to take months to recover if a site is impacted by this update.
If you believe your site is impacted by a Google spam update, the first thing you should do is contact your webmaster or hosting agency. A careful and thorough review of Google’s spam policies needs to be done. Then, confirm a manual action has not been taken by consulting the manual actions report.
The Google Helpful Content Update
What it Was About
On August 25th, 2022, Google rolled out the August 2022 helpful content update. The rollout completed as of September 9, 2022.
This update was intended to focus on providing search results for content that made visitors feel they had a satisfying experience. In other words, content that met the searchers intent and provided them with helpful information from a trusted source would perform better than content that doesn’t.
What it Addressed
The Google Helpful Content update addressed content that was written “for search engines” rather than users in mind. Unfortunately, some SEO “experts” or self-proclaimed “gurus” made a practice of writing content that fell just short of black-hat practices, but clearly was written to cater to computers rather than humans.
This update also addressed the AI written content that recently became popular. Some sites and blogs would use extensive automation to flood their site with content. Along with that, just a dense amount of content even organically written by a person that just tries to summarize topics in hopes to appear in more search results won’t work for you after this update either.
Additionally, for content to truly be helpful, it needs to come from someone with established authority on the subject. For example, a website primarily for hairstyles would probably not be an authoritative source for the best long-term dividend stocks to invest in.
And Google finally addressed the long-held gospel of SEO “experts” that no, there is no particular word count that the algorithm prefers. So, if you get some offer for blog posts from an agency saying that they meet some word count, that it is some best practice of Google’s, it isn’t! They don’t know what they are talking about so, steer clear!
What Impact it Had
Sites that provided helpful, “user first” content experienced a nice boost in rankings. Just check out an example of one of our own:
For sites that did provide content that met the criteria mentioned above however, saw large drops in impressions and ranking on search results. This is also important to note that it impacted entire sites, not just the offending page or post.
The September 2022 Core Update
What it Was About
Google rolled out a core update on September 12th, 2022, and it was finished on September 26th, 2022.
While Google has minor updates that happen constantly, throughout the year, they will have updates they refer to as “core updates”. These core updates are announced ahead of time, whereas the other, less noticeable updates are not.
This is because the core updates make broader changes that are certainly going to impact the algorithms that influence search rankings for websites. The goal of these updates is to provide relevant and authoritative content, and to refresh the results users see.
For example, you may have a favorite band and a list of your favorite albums or songs. Well as the band writes new music, that list is likely to change. The idea is similar when Google makes a core update. By keeping the SERPs fresh and re-examining the content that is available, users should get a better experience.
What it Addressed
Core updates, like discussed above, aren’t really about any one particular facet of search. It’s about refreshing what users can find and presenting them with the best available content.
What Impact it Had
Overall, this particular core update seemed to have less of an impact than previous updates. Of course, that doesn’t matter if your site was impacted! This is why it is important to track your site with analytics to see what a core update might have done to affect your site.
The Product Reviews Update
What it Was About
To make matters worse, while a core update was going on, Google released a product reviews update on September 20th, 2022. This update finished and was completed on September 26th, 2022 alongside the core update.
This was the fifth revision of the product reviews algorithm. These updates are focused on pages that have reviews of products (obviously), to ensure shoppers find the best information and make the best decision before purchasing a product.
What it Addressed
Google has a list of best practices they expect your product reviews to adhere to. You can check the full list out here. But essentially some of what your review pages should focus on is:
- Show you are an expert on the product you are reviewing
- Provide evidence like visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product
- Explain what makes this product different than its competitors
- Discuss the pros and cons of a particular product, based on your own personal experience
- Explain why you consider that product the best, with first-hand supporting evidence
- Always form your review and writeup from the user’s perspective
What Impact it Had
Google Product Reviews are typically very impactful and usually cause a lot of movement for the sites it hits. Much like their Core Updates, Product Review updates might hit just one post or just the blog on the site, but it will subsequently impact the entire site.
It is worth noting too, that if a site does lose ranking and positions, it may not necessarily be because it did anything wrong. It may simply be because other sites gain positive traction from the update.
This then makes it very difficult to pinpoint what the actual impact was. However, as Google and any actual SEO expert will tell you, if you follow best practices and stop trying to write content for a search engine, but rather for humans to benefit from, you will organically perform better.