Google is launching September 2022 Core update, the second core update of this year. Before this the core update that we saw was launched in May 2022. The search engine giant rolled out the September 2022 core update on 12th September 2022 and it will take approximately 2 weeks for the update rollout to be complete.
Several times a year, Google makes broad updates to its algorithm to ensure that the users get relevant and authoritative information. They refer to these as “Core Updates”. A wide-range of sites experience notable drops or gains in search traffic during this period.
Core Updates and Site Rankings
Sometimes, websites that experience a drop in rankings and organic traffic have done nothing wrong. They haven’t violated Google’s Webmaster Guidelines or haven’t been hit by a manual action, so there’s nothing that they can fix to improve their rankings.
The Core Updates do not target any specific sites or pages – it’s an improvement in Google’s systems to assess overall content.
Everyday, thousands of new pages are indexed by Google. These pages might have updated, more relevant and deserving content – so these Core Updates try to improve ranking of such pages.
September 2022 Core Update
Just after the Helpful Content Update, Danny Sullivan – Google’s Public Search Liason tweeted this:
Maybe the helpful content signal alone wasn’t enough to tip the scales and produce a change in someone’s particular situation, but when we do other updates (core, product reviews), it might add into that and be more significant….
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 6, 2022
According to his tweet, maybe the Helpful Content Update wasn’t enough to make the search more relevant and this September Core Update is adding to that.
What to focus on after the September Broad Core Update?
As for any other core update, webmasters should focus on providing original, authoritative and quality content.
E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) is extremely important, especially for topics that fall in the YMYL category (Your Money or Your Life). If you want more information on that, you can go through the 167 page long search rater quality guidelines.
How to Recover from a Broad Core Update?
Broad Core Updates are introduced every few months. Any site that has been affected by one might not recover (considering improvements are made) till the next core updates.
However, Google makes minor updates to its systems frequently that can cause the site to recover. Because these are not generally widely noticeable, Google doesn’t make any formal announcement.
The September 2022 Core Update has been rolled out globally for all regions and languages. It will also impact Google Discover, Featured snippets and more.
A great way of spotting the core updates is by looking at SERP volatility. You can keep track of it in the SERP Volatility and Google Updates Tracker.
