SEARCHENGINES
Google September Core Update & Product Reviews Update Both Completed On September 26th
As I called, Google has completed rolling out both the September 2022 core update and the September 2022 product reviews update while I was offline. Both officially finished rolling out on September 26, 2022 – so Monday.
Here are some quick facts on both these updates, now that they are done. But as you know, the core update took exactly two weeks to roll out, a full 14 days. The product reviews update took only six days to roll out.
Google September 2022 Core Update
- Name: Google September 2022 Broad Core Update
- Launched: September 12, 2022 at around 11:25 pm ET
- Rollout: Two weeks – completing on September 26, 2022
- 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 but so far, this seems to be a typical core update that reaches wide and the impact is fast.
- 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.
Google September 2022 Product Reviews Update
- Name: Google September 2022 Product Reviews Update
- Launched: September 20, 2022 at around 4 am ET
- Rollout: Six days – completing on September 26, 2022
- Targets: It looks at product review content
- Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards “insightful analysis and original research.”
- Not a core update: Many are going to say this is a core update, it is not.
- English Language but will expand: This is only looking at English-language content right now but likely will expand to other languages, this is a global launch. I am surprised it is still only English but it is, as we documented below.
- Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update.
- Discover: This update can impact your performance in Google Discover, Google previously said.
- 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 advice below
- Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. This may be the first refresh that Google has done, it is the first refresh Google communicated about.
Both updates were fairly large and had big impacts for many many sites. Which one impacted which, despite what Google said, can be hard to pin point.
I have a bit more on the core update impact here and the product reviews impact here.
SEO Chatter
Glenn Gabe, as do others, thinks the product reviews update, was a bit (maybe a simplification) of a correction on the fourth product reviews update. Meaning, they fixed some flaws with the fourth product reviews update with the last one, the fifth product reviews update. Here are some tweets from Glenn:
Quick update on the Sep Product Reviews Update. Looks like Google pushed a BIG tremor on Sat into Sun & a # of sites that tanked w/the July PRU are recovering (w/out changing anything). I said in July that I expected changes there. Thx to the site owner letting me share this. pic.twitter.com/9clUFmmotj
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 27, 2022
OK, here’s another site that got hit hard w/the July Product Reviews Update that surged back on Sunday when Google pushed a tremor. The site owner explained the July hit was a wakeup call & they have been addressing some things. But sure seems like this was a correction by Google pic.twitter.com/BnuaeY7zIY
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 27, 2022
Well, that sounds familiar! I’ve had a bunch of site owners reach out w/a similar situation. Great to see that recovery. Google seemed to address some flaws with the July PRU. 🙂
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 27, 2022
There was definitely a spike in chatter in the SEO community over the weekend, here is some of that chatter from WebmasterWorld:
All of my sites are down around 25%.
How have ALL of them fallen basically the exact same percentage? Whatever this update is, it’s the worst one yet for me.
For whatever reason I’m off the cliff edge today, after 13 hours I am at 13% of my 1-24 Sept average!
My first thought was the site was down or had been down, nope, we’ll see what the rest of the day brings.
In the past few days, I’ve been seeing a rise in sites like TripAdvisor and TripSavvy, which are the travel information sector’s equivalent of big box stores. I see that as an erosion of subject authority as a ranking factor.
The ranking difference isn’t huge, but when you’ve been ranking at or near the top of the SERP for a bunch of important searches, a drop from the first position to the second–or from the second position to the third–can have a significant impact on Google traffic (especially if an answer box or a list of questions has been inserted after the first result).
25 year old site, medium-large, well established, first mover in our niche back in mid 90s, 20,000+ referring domains backlinking to us. Not a major brand.
The second the core update started running on the 13th we started dropping like a rock. Down 20% sitewide now, and continuing to drop. We were clearly hit by some invisible sitewide penalty, as EVERY SERP listing dropped for us by at least a spot, in many case many spots. We do not use any black hat SEO, keyword manipulation, unhelpful content, etc. We trimmed out our thin pages to improve quality indexing significantly over a year ago, and updated a good chunk of our content…
For my first 13 hours on Sunday I was almost flatlining and then traffic kicked-in resulting with an almost average Sunday plus the traffic has continued into today so far.
While my sites are all still down, today’s numbers look more like -5-10% down from the norm instead of the -25% I was seeing earlier.
Seeing our site tumbling over the same visibility chart cliff as a very friendly to google cable news network’s website does add some amusement to the situation…
20 year old site here. Aug update hit us slightly, but this update has been a major hit as well (though we have been on a slow slide this past year). Down another 20% it seems…
There is a bit of chatter into today with SEOs saying they are still seeing volatility.
Tracking Tools On September 2022 Core & Product Reviews Update
Here is what those tracking tools looked like over the past two weeks or more:
Sorry for being offline when the update finished, I am still catching up. I do hope you all did well with these two updates.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 18, 2024
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Google Ads notified advertisers that some ad customizers will stop working soon. Google discontinued the limited use video carousel markup. Google Maps has new directions and travel features, plus a bunch of new EV features. Google Notes on Search might not end in May 2024 despite what people suggest. Google Business Profiles asked businesses to register their defibrillators, their AEDs.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
-
Google Notes On Search Won’t Necessarily Go Away In May
There have been some people noticing that the Google Notes On Search labs experiment has an end date of May 2024 and thus they are expecting Notes on Search to be turned off by then. Just because it has that end date listed, it does not mean the labs experiment will end on that date. -
Google Maps Releases New Directions, Travel & EV Features
Google has announced a number of new travel features with Google Maps and Travel around driving alternatives, trains and buses, travel impact mode and then some new EV driving direction features. Google says these features are to give you more “sustainable choices.” -
Google Ads Reminds Advertisers Some Ad Customizers Will Go Away May 31st
On August 31, 2021, Google notified advertisers it would drop support for expanded text ads for responsive search ads. Google is now reminding advertisers that Ad customizers for text ads, expanded text ads and Dynamic Search Ads will stop serving after May 31, 2024. -
Google Drops Video Carousel Markup
Google has discontinued its support for video carousel markup and has thus removed it from its video structured data help documentation. Initially, Google tested video carousel on a limited number of sites and is now saying that it “ultimately found that it wasn’t useful for the ecosystem at scale.” -
Google Business Profiles Register Your Defibrillator (AED)
Google sent out emails a couple of days ago to businesses asking them to register their Automated External Defibrillator (AED) with Google Business Profiles. Google said, “you could save lives” if you do it. -
Google NYC Earthquake Reaction Video
A couple of weeks ago we had an earthquake in the New York region and I finally found a video from the Google NYC office of the reaction of some Googlers while the earthquake happened. These Googlers were recording a video and felt it but were unsure if that was a real earthquake.
Other Great Search Threads:
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 17, 2024
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
The Google March core update still is causing volatility and it is deepening. Google may make changes to the crawl stats report in Search Console. Google Search Console now shows unused ownership tokens. Google Maps will drop the review drafts. Google Add added generative AI for image generate for Demand Gen campaigns. Google Search is testing more sitelinks designs.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
-
Deepening Google Core Ranking Volatility Hits Yesterday & Today
I know we just reported on more volatility this Monday, possibly related to the Google March 2024 core update, but we are seeing even more volatility over the past 24 hours related to this update. This volatility shows deepening movement for those who were hit, which is incredibly sad in many cases. -
Google Search Console Adds Unused Ownership Tokens
Google Search Console has a new security feature under user and permission management to help you manage your unused ownership tokens. Basically, it helps you manage who has permissions to your Search Console profiles and who should not, maybe some legacy verifications. -
Google: Should We Explain The Crawl Stats Report in Search Console
Martin Splitt from Google posted a one-line question asking, “Should we do something to explain the crawl stats report in GSC?” This was posted on Mastodon, which has a small audience, but the responses were pretty good. -
New Google Ads AI Generated Image Tool For Demand Gen Campaigns
Google Ads announced that Demand Gen campaigns are getting generative AI tools to create image assets. This is rolling out to advertisers around the world in English with more languages to come later this year, Google said. -
Google Tests Horizontal Lines For Sitelinks & People Also Ask
Google Search is testing horizontal lines under the sitelinks and the people also ask elements in the search results. This is a long horizontal line that goes across the while search result snippet. -
Google Maps No Longer Will Support Draft Reviews
Google Maps will soon stop supporting drafting reviews for local business listings and Google Business Profiles. Google said that starting July 16, 2024, review drafts will no longer be supported. -
Doogler In Google Play Area
Some of you love photos of dogs, so here is another one of a Doogler, a Google dog, in a play area, at the Google office. This was shared by the Life at Google Twitter account.
Other Great Search Threads:
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
SEARCHENGINES
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 16, 2024
Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Google will fight the site reputation abuse spam both algorithmically and with manual actions. Google is testing thumbs-up and down in product carousels. Google Ads similar product carousel is being tested. Google Search updated its image documentation. Google AdSense has a new ad format named ad intents.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
-
Google Will Fight Site Reputation Abuse Spam Both With Manual Actions & Algorithms
Google’s new spam algorithm update also introduced new spam policies including the upcoming site reputation abuse policy that won’t go into effect until May 2024. Google has confirmed it will fight site reputation abuse spam using both manual actions (humans) and algorithms (machines). -
Google Search Tests Thumbs Up/Down Buttons In Product Grid Results
Google launched the style recommendations with thumbs up and down buttons not long ago after testing it in January. Now Google is showing this thumbs up and down buttons in the product grid search results, so Google can see what you like or dislike and then show you more products that you do like. -
Google Ads “Similar Product” Carousel
Google has a similar products section and carousel for Google Ads sponsored listings. We have seen similar products and similar shopping related results from the organic / free listings but now I am seeing examples of a search ad carousel for “similar products.” -
Clarification: Google Search Supports Images Referenced From src Attribute
Google has clarified in its image search help documentation that images are only extracted from the src attribute of img tags in Google Search. This is not new, but Google decided to update its documentation based on some questions it received about the topic. -
Google AdSense New Ad Intents Formats – Links & Anchors In Content
Google AdSense announced a new auto ads format named “Ad intents.” Ad intents places links and anchors showing organic search results with ads into existing text and pages on your site related to your content. Yea, it takes your content, and hyperlinks it to the Google search results. -
3-Wheel Tricycle At Google
Google’s Ann Arbor office has this 3-wheel tricycle that some Googlers have used over the years to get around the office. This one looks like the hot pink Huffy brand. I spotted this recently on Instagram but the photo is from 2016.
Other Great Search Threads:
- I don’t have an update to share at this time, but you should continue to use classic GMC for rules and supplemental feed support. Here’s how to switch back if needed, AdsLiaison on X
- In this case, I’ve been introducing a new metric; “likelihood to get search traffic” to see what we should add to XML sitemaps. Some pages might do incredibly well on other metrics, but simply, Joost de Valk on X
- It does have a title, and it loads a HTML page – so this seems normal. The JavaScript doesn’t seem to be loading well, so if you’re the site owner, I’d suggest reading ou, John Mueller on X
- News! Google Ads removed in some accounts the possibility to hover over a daily budget to edit it. You need to hover now and then click on “Edit budget”. Why changing things to less user-friendly ones, Thomas Eccel on X
- The time has come! Registration for the Zürich Product Experts Summit has now opened for eligible PEs in Europe. Virtual registration will follow in May. Check your inboxes and the KB for more details., Google’s Product Experts Program on X
- When I want to add positive search terms as exact match, I first add them quickly as broad, then bulk switch them over to exact match. lately I’ve been getting this error and the only way I can switch the keywords is by using Ads Editor., Greg on X
- Yeah, quantity says nothing about quality and even less about user value or business value. Sometimes the solution to a “crawl budget problem” is not to make the server faster & search engines, John Mueller on X
- Which the best method to link to the alternative language of a website, WebmasterWorld
Search Engine Land Stories:
Other Great Search Stories:
Analytics
Industry & Business
Links & Content Marketing
Local & Maps
Mobile & Voice
SEO
PPC
Search Features
Other Search
Feedback:
Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.
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