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Google March 2023 Broad Core Update Tremors Continue

Published

1 year ago

March 25, 2023

As you know, Google has started to roll out the Google March 2023 Broad Core update on March 15th, it should probably continue to roll out through the first half of next week and complete. But like most Google updates, we see tremors and fluctuations during (and sometimes after) the roll out.

In the past 24-hours, I’ve been noticing larger tremors and fluctuations with this update. It may signal that the update is almost done rolling out or that there is a big more to go. There are over 400 comments on the original story with SEOs following these fluctuations closely, as well as chatter on Webmaster World. I will quote some of it below but let me first start with the tracking tools.

Tracking Tools On March 2023 Core Update – Updated For March 24th

As a reminder, this update started on March 15th, but here is what the tracking tools showed over the roll out. You can see a big spike the day or so after it was announced and then it started to calm. Then the past 24 hours or so, the spike and volatility started to kick up a notch again. Here are what the tools are showing:

Semrush:

RankRanger:

Accuranker:

Advanced Web Rankings:

I suspect some of the ones that are showing lower volatility will update today with higher volatility…

Renewed SEO Chatter On March 2023 Core Update

Here is some new chatter from the over 400 comments on the original story here and Webmaster World.

My total traffic in the past 48 hours is only 3 (Three). I suspect if analytics is broken. How about yours?

Back to normal here, the second shuffle round didnt start here yet.
Look into your own real server logs. No webbug shows better numbers.

I think so second wave is under the way. In UAE I can see the websites with .nz, .ca, co.uk, .com, .au ranking on 1st and 2nd page.

today traffic is lowest of all these years and same time the Bard Launch for public in US and UK!

Just coming up to 19 hours of my Goggleday and US traffic is 50% of its usual level.
Nearly all non-US companies in my widget sector have been pushed down to a minimum 30+ for the top selling widgets but I wonder what the actual organic traffic levels are since there are so many ads and images it’s nearly impossible to find them.

This new core update has been quite a roller coaster for me – I initially went up around 35% week over week, then went down, and then back up again. Overall, I’m back to my early Jan rankings/traffic levels, so no biggies.

Our 21-year-old editorial travel information site had a nice uptick about a day before the March Core Update was announced. In the days immediately after the update began rolling out, we had a moderate but sharp decline in traffic, seemingly across the board.
Traffic dropped maybe 10 to 15 percent, depending on the day, with average positions in Google Search Console dropping from the 17-18 range to 26 one day and 19 or so overall.Things have perked up a bit in the last couple of days, but we’re still below the levels of the same dates last year.
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Usually I don’t see this much volatility during major Google updates, and in most cases we’re barely affected by the updates at all. I’m guessing that our site won’t see a lot more change from this current update, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong (preferably in a good way!).

I was doing well as well, until today. Anyway Core update not yet done. I’m receive almost no traffic from the US/Canada too.

My site is ranking higher and higher, with a big increase in top 3/10 ranking pages in the last two days, but traffic to my home page and some of my landing pages is in the dog house. my top landing page that was doing well, is down 80% this morning. I checked and there are two ads at top of page, then local search results, then I dropped from 1st to 2nd, but my site has the wide carousel of images underneath. I would call that good placement…but an 80% drop.
Traffic overall has been higher since this core update, but USA and Canada are definitely not sending more traffic. There are zero new inquiries for the last week or more…unusual for this time of year.

Anyway, we are not done yet – and I hope you are all managing during this update.

We will keep you posted on any future changes – as always.

Forum discussion at Webmaster World.

Related Topics:Broad Continue core Google March searchengine Tremors update

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Google Won’t Change The 301 Signals For Ranking & SEO

Published

10 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Gary Illyes from Google said on stage at the SERP conference last week that there is no way that Google would change how the 301 redirect signal works for SEO or search rankings. Gary added that it’s a very reliable signal.

Nikola Minkov quoted Gary Illyes as saying, “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal,” when asked if a 301 redirect not working is a myth. Honestly, I am not sure the context of this question, as it is not clear from the post on X, but here it is:

More from @methode:
– 301 redirect not working is a myth. “It is a very reliable signal, and there is no way we could change that signal”.#SERPConf2024 #SERPConf2024International
— Nikola Minkov (@n_minkov) April 19, 2024

We’ve covered 301 redirects here countless times – but I never saw a myth that Google does not use 301 redirects as a signal for canonicalization or for passing signals from an old URL to the redirected URL.

Forum discussion at X.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.

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Google Again Says Ignore Link Spam Especially To 404 Pages

Published

1 day ago

April 23, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

I am not sure how many times Google has said that you do not need to disavow spammy links, that you can ignore link spam attacks and that links pointing to pages that 404/410 are links that do not count – but John Mueller from Google said it again.

In a thread on X, John Mueller from Google wrote, “if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped.” “They do nothing,” he added, “If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link.”

John then added, “I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.”

Asking if it would hurt to disavow, after responding with the messages above, John wrote:

It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).

Earlier this year we had tons of SEOs notice spammy links to 404 error pages, John said ignore them. In 2021, Google said links to 404 pages do not count, Google also said that in 2012 and many other times.

Plus, outside of links to 404 pages, Google has said to ignore spammy links, time and time again – even the toxic links – ignore them. The messaging around this changed in 2016 when Penguin 4.0 was released and Google began devaluing links over demoting them.

Here are those new posts in context:

I’d say add both. Lol
— Jeremy Rivera (@JeremyRiveraSEO) April 11, 2024

Sure. But also, save yourself the work completely :-).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

Re-reading your initial post – if the links are going to URLs that 404 on your site, they’re already dropped. They do nothing. If there’s no indexable destination URL, there’s no link. I’d generally ignore link-spam, and definitely ignore link-spam to 404s.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

… but still… is this a dumb idea?
— Rebekah Edwards (@rebekah_creates) April 11, 2024
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It will do absolutely nothing. I would take the time to rework a holistic & forward-looking strategy for the site overall instead of working on incremental tweaks (other tweaks might do something, but you probably need real change, not tweaks).
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 11, 2024

And in general, Google says it ignores spammy links, so you should too (not new) but this post from John Mueller is:

I would just ignore them, Google ignores them too. Sometimes they’re just more visible in tools, but that doesn’t mean they’re a problem.
— John 🧀 … 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 18, 2024

And then also on Mastodon wrote about a similar situation, “Google has 2 decades of practice of ignoring spammy links. There’s no need to do anything for those links.”

Forum discussion at X.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.

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Google Needs Very Few Links To Rank Pages; Links Are Less Important

Published

3 days ago

April 22, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Gary Illyes from Google spoke at the SERP Conf on Friday and he said what he said numerous times before, that Google values links a lot less today than it did in the past. He added that Google Search “needs very few links to rank pages.”

Gary reportedly said, “We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.”

I am quoting Patrick Stox who is quoting what he heard Gary say on stage at the event. Here is Patrick’s post where Gary did a rare reply:

I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that
— Gary 鯨理／경리 Illyes (so official, trust me) (@methode) April 19, 2024

Gary said this a year ago, also in 2022 and other times as well. We previously covered that Google said links would likely become even less important in the future. And even Matt Cutts, the former Googler, said something similar about eight years ago and the truth is, links are weighted a lot less than it was eight years ago and that trend continues. A couple of years ago, Google said links are not the most important Google search ranking factor.

Of course, many SEOs think Google lies about this.

Judith Lewis interviewed Gary Illyes at the SERP Conf this past Friday.

Forum discussion at X and image credit to @n_minkov.