SEARCHENGINES
Google May 2022 Core Updates Continue, However We’re Probably At The End

Google’s May 2022 core update is now just about 13 days in, we expect Google to say the update is now rolling out sometime in the next 72 hours or so. But till then, it does seem like the tremors have continued, with big spikes on Sunday, June 5, 2022.
I was offline the from Friday evening through super late last night, so I am still playing catch up. But from what I can tell, there were some big tremors in the Google Search results on Sunday, June 5th. The SEO chatter and the Google tracking tools both picked up on it. This seems to be the tail-end of this May 2022 core update.
Google May 2022 Broad Core Update Quick Facts
As a reminder, here are the quick facts that we know about this core update:
- Name: Google May 2022 Broad Core Update
- Launched: May 25, 2022 at around 11:30pm ET
- Rollout: It will take about one to two weeks to roll out
- Targets: It looks at all types of content
- Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards great web pages
- Global: This is a global update impacting all regions, in all languages.
- Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update.
- Discover: Core updates impact Google Discover and other features, also feature snippets and more.
- Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google’s core update advice.
- Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. Maybe this is what we saw the past couple of weeks or all those unconfirmed Google updates.
We posted a lot of the stories from some SEOs about this core update over here. The comments on all these posts are tremendous, so check them out when you have time.
Google Tracking Tools Show Spike June 5th
Here is what we are seeing from the tools:
So you can see, most, not all, of the tools picked up a lot of volatility on or around June 5th – which is normal – we normally see tremors after a core update rolls out.
SEO Chatter Spikes ~June 5th
The folks at WebmasterWorld have been chattering a lot since the core update has been released. But there was a spike in that chatter about change around June 5th, starting as early as June 4th. Normally the SEO chatter comes before the tools pick up on the changes. Here is what we see with the chatter:
This weekend is shaping up to be a strong weekend which I am not accustomed to. Normally traffic trails off a bit from Friday afternoon through Saturday and picks up again after midday Sunday. Today is looking like what I would expect to see anytime within the midweek.
Saturday was right at the bottom end of a weekend average at 56.7% and after 14 hours of my G Sunday so far it is abnormally low plus looking at it on a weekly basis I am down 30%. I need to check again however it would appear the reduction is in my most popular keyword products having been demoted in the US SERPs.
News website in the finance niche: Didn’t notice much of a change last week (when this core update was announced), but since Friday the site is down 30% in traffic.
However, SERP didn’t get affected almost at all, still marinating high ranking for hot keywords, what makes me suspect the sharp drop is entitled to Google News and/or news articles mainly.
Over the past two years all the core updates were neutral or positive for us, however, this time it seems to be very bad until now.
My traffic has been blitzed…every day usa traffic starts at -50% to -70% from the norm. Canada is at zero most days and UK is significantly down, as is most traffic from Western Europe. Only Australia, E Europe and developing world is up…plenty of India, Paki, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Africa.
Semrush sensor is pegging out at a 9.0 today in volatility. Last time it was near this high was Thurs the 26th of May when the update began. The next nearest was June 1 at 8.1.
My traffic has fallen off for Sunday which is abnormal and no doubt part of the deck shuffling taking place out there. I am down by about 50% so whatever they are doing its going strong. Before today, the days where traffic did slip it was between 10 to 20%.
So we have the rest of this week to ride it out really and then the following week the dust settles. Hopefully we will know more about where things land by the weekend.
Seeing some significant changes for Sunday too, in tune with Semrush sensor.
This should be crunch week with the roll-out completition therefore the next few days should be very siginificant for those affected.
My last few days have been much quieter than usual with Sunday -50% v a normal weekend day however so far this morning my traffic volume is looking normal. its sources, its searches etc. I was very surprised.
The switch was flipped about 23.00 UK time for me last night.
My website traffic is rollercoasting since the update, but is down overall -20%. All featured snippets are gone for entire site. The website is still ranking at #1 spot for most of those queries.
Traffic has skyrocketed today…the first strong day since the 25th. Search is up 43% today, direct traffic also up…English language traffic up ex Canada. Let’s see if it lasts or if it’s just a blip…
I’m seeing a slight increase in organic traffic as well, but it only started happening in the last 2 to 3 hours. Still could be anything.
Monday was down 33% across nearly all sites for me and a quick comparison analysis of June 1-6 v Jan 1 to May 31 shows:
Page Views -35.4%
Unique Visitors -24.2%
First Time Visitors -22.8%
Returning Visitors 32.2%For me June is traditionally a good month since many bulk buyers are topping-up stocks for late Summer and ensuring they have the right balance going into Autumn / Winter, my widgets are not impulse purchases.
If traffic continues at this level then I’ve been hit by “something” and apart from a few big money keyword losses its very difficult to see precisely what unless a worldwide disinterest in my widgets so happened to co-incide with G’s update!
Here are some of the newer comments in this post:
I’m seeing signs of a boost in traffic for my (mostly) informational site. I don’t think it means anything, but I’m still hopeful I can regain some of my traffic back.
This update is really very strange, how is it possible for a whitehat website to experience a significant decrease in traffic even up to 90%. Many of my keywords are missing and I’m afraid this will continue, this makes me quite depressed considering this is a hard work we have built over the last 3 years. I always said NO NO to pbn and the like because I thought that whitehat would bring better results and would be long term, but it went away in a few days, which is weird. I hope Google will take into account some of the input from friends and blog owners who have been trying in the last few years.
Although the update has been surprisingly good for me, the throttling has been bad this week. Sometimes you think it’s the weather, since summer always brings a natural slump, but the bump in traffic today can’t be explained any other way except through the end of a throttle period.
Same here. For the last 4 days I’ve experienced a partial offset of fortunes, more traffic and conversions but it’s still a long way to go. SERPs still all over the place with abysmal organic results and sponsored content galore.
Well hopefully last 24 is some kind of mistake, as my top quality site is down, and seeing a lot news spam up
More from the May broad core update. I’m seeing what looks like a BIG tremor on 6/5 that’s causing some sites to reverse. I’m digging into one case right now where the site was increasing nicely & tanked on 6/5. GSC data shows that drop (even bigger than visibility drops below). pic.twitter.com/aeZA50wxtI
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) June 7, 2022
So yea, seems like this may be the last big tremor for the May 2022 core update. I am sure we will see more after Google confirms the update is done rolling out but it will be hard to attribute to the core update.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Hanukkah Decorations Are Live For 2023

Hanukkah (aka Chanukah) starts this coming Thursday night, December 7th. Google has added its Hanukkah decorations to the Google Search results interface to celebrate. Google does this every year and I expect to see the same rollout in the coming weeks for Christmas and Kawanzaa but for now, since Chanukah is in the coming days, we have the Hanukkah decorations live at Google Search.
Here is a screenshot of the Chanukah decorations as they look like on the mobile search results.
You can see it yourself by searching on Google for [chanukah], [hanukkah], but not yet [חֲנוּכָּה] or other spelling variations yet but it should soon. It looks better on mobile than it does on desktop results.
To see the past, the 2023 decorations, 2021 decorations, 2020 Chanukah decorations, 2019 Google holiday decorations, the 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and so on.
Happy Chanukah, everyone!
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Pay Accepted Icons In Google Search Results

Google seems to be testing a Google Pay Accepted label or icon in the Google search results. This label has the super G logo followed by the words “Pay accepted” words next to search result snippets that support Google Pay and notate such in their structured data.
This was first spotted by Khushal Bherwani who shared some screenshots of this on X – here is one:
Here are some more screenshots:
Here is test and without test window for same query. pic.twitter.com/n9cYWBOsro
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) October 20, 2023
Brodie Clark also posted some screenshots after on X:
In continuation from the test from October, Google is now testing out a new Google Pay label associated with organic results. Last month, Google was testing Pay Accepted text, with this month changing it to Pay encrypted checkout. More details: https://t.co/MvFNoPmMDR pic.twitter.com/WDVVc4RbTO
— SERPs Up 🌊 (@SERPalerts) November 30, 2023
I tried to replicate this but I came up short.
This is not the first time Google had similar icons like this in its search results.
Forum discussion at X.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Arrived

Typically, Google Discover shows content that is less than a day old, but it can show content that is weeks, months, or even years old. However, typically, Google will show more recent content in the Discover feed. Well, that may have changed with the new Google follow feature.
Glenn Gabe, who is a very active Google Discover user, noticed that since the Follow feature rolled out, he has been seeing content that is weeks and months old way more often than before the follow feature rolled out. Glenn wrote on X that “this could also be playing a role. i.e. Google isn’t providing as much recent content, but instead, focusing on providing targeted content based on the topics you are following.”
It makes sense that if you follow a specific topic and if Google Discover only shows the most authoritative types of content, it might be hard for Google to find new content on that topic. So it does make sense that Google may show older content more often for that specific topic you follow.
Here are screenshots Glenn shared:
Have you noticed this in your Discover feed?
Forum discussion at X.
-
SOCIAL6 days ago
Musk regrets controversial post but won’t bow to advertiser ‘blackmail’
-
SEO7 days ago
SEO Salary Survey 2023 [Industry Research]
-
MARKETING7 days ago
Revolutionizing Auto Retail: The Game-Changing Partnership Between Amazon and Hyundai
-
SEO6 days ago
A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI
-
PPC6 days ago
5 Quick Tips to Increase Referral Traffic
-
SEO4 days ago
GPT Store Set To Launch In 2024 After ‘Unexpected’ Delays
-
SOCIAL5 days ago
Is this X’s (formerly Twitter) final goodbye to big advertisers? It looks like it
-
SEARCHENGINES4 days ago
Google Core Update Done Followed By Intense Search Volatility, New Structured Data, Google Ads Head Steps Down & 20 Years Covering Search
You must be logged in to post a comment Login