How does Google Core Updates Impact Ranking Volatility?

Google Update Impact on Google Ranking 

With the passage of time, Google is constantly trying to improve user-experience. Google wants that the user should clear their query from it and not feel the need to go to other search engines for clearing their queries. 

Due to this, Google keeps on updating their algorithm. But these updates in Google Algorithm have an impact on Google Search Ranking. Most of the website owners do not know the effect Google updates have on their website. Also if their ranking decreases due to it, what steps they have to take to restore their website ranking. We will guide you with each and everything.

What is Google Core Update?

Google Core updates are the changes in Google Search algorithms and systems. Its actual focus is to improve the relevance and the quality of search results. These are the events that result in a shocking drop or rise in website ranking as it causes ranking fluctuation. 

Myths about Google Core Update

There are some common myths found in people about the Google Core update that should be clear.

Myth:- Core updates are Penalties by Google.

Reality:- Google updates algorithms for improving how Google ranks content.

Myth:- Link building does not matter.

Reality:- Quality backlinks play a vital role in increasing organic traffic.

Myth:- You can fix your site overnight

Reality:- Recovery of a website needs constant efforts and improvement.

What is SEO Ranking Fluctuation or Ranking Volatility?

SEO Ranking Fluctuation also called as Ranking Volatility means the changes occur in your website appearance on Google Search Result Page (SERP) for specific keywords overtime. These changes are the normal part of how search engines process.

There are some characteristics of ranking fluctuation that are important to understand:

• Constant Movement:- The position of a website for a specific keyword can rise or fall daily, weekly or hourly.
  
  

•  Common Occurrence:- Fluctuations are very common for all websites. It happens due to several factors.
  
  

• Impact:- Ranking fluctuations can affect the website’s visibility, traffic and obviously business results.

The Impact of Google Core Updates on Overall Ranking Volatility

Whenever Google releases a new core update, it poses an effect on the Google’s Search Ranking of a website in several ways. Mostly, it is affected after considering the relevancy, quality and user-experience of a website or webpage. Here’s how the Google Search Update impacts a website’s ranking.

Shift in Relevancy or Quality Analyzation

Core updates give a clarity to Google’s algorithm of the content. In other words, it clearly tells Google what the content is about, whether it is relevant to the search query or not, whether it provides quality and fulfils the user query or not. It also tells whether the webpage provides value and good user-experience or not. If it does then Google will rank up your website for specific keywords after its update.

Conversely, if the content is not providing value, fulfils user query, irrelevant and poor quality, Google will drop your ranking in the search result page.

Shift in Search Intent

There can also be a change in the search intent of keywords after the release of Google update. Suppose before the update a keyword had informational intent but after the update the keyword has commercial intent. If Google finds that your content is not aligned with search intent for the specific keyword, Google will de-rank your website.

Improve User-Experience Signals

Google seriously considers the user-experience and keeps its best to give good user-experience and that’s what it wants from the website’s as well. 

The core updates of Google usually include user-experience factors. The factors such as page speed, mobile friendliness or secure connections such as HTTPS. Websites that have well improved these technical factors are more likely to keep or improve rankings after core update.

Authority and Backlink Profile Adjustments

Google may reevaluate the authority of websites on the basis of their backlink profiles and trustworthiness. Websites that acquire backlinks from strong and reputable sources or platforms will witness a rise in search ranking. On the other hand, the websites that acquired backlinks from low authority or spammy websites will witness a drop in search ranking.

SERP Features and Layout Changes

When Google releases a new core update, sometimes it revamp Google Search Result Page. This change in search result page affects the features such as featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes or Knowledge Panels appear. This has a huge impact on organic traffic.

Niche Specific Effects

Google’s update also affects websites on the basis of their niches. The websites with niches such as healthcare or finance, face strict inspection during core updates. These websites usually witness huge ranking fluctuation because of its high standards for expertise and trust.

What to do if Website Ranking Drops?

Most of the website owners are witnessing a drop in ranking. But they don’t know how to tackle this and gain the ranking of the website. 

Below is the checklist of actionable steps that you have to take if website ranking drops after Google Core Update:

• Analyze the Performance

• Audit Content

• Assess E-E-A-T

• Improve User-Experience

• Observe Technical SEO
  
  

We will discuss all of these one by one below:-

Performance Analysis

If the website ranking drops after updating, just analyze the performance of the website through Google Search Console or Google Analytics. You can analyze different aspects of a website through these tools.

Through Google Search Console you can analyze the performance of your different pages on Google. See which page dropped in position. Visit the page and analyze its content and improve it. 

Google Analytics helps in analyzing the user behaviour. Analyze the page on which the user is not coming or has a higher bounce rate. Maybe the user is not finding something valuable on it. Visit the page and improve its content.

Content Audit

Auditing content is the key and can solve several ranking problems of a website. After analyzing the performance, conduct content auditing. This means analysing the webpage that has witnessed a ranking drop. This can happen because of low value, thin, outdated or duplicate content.

All of these contents are poor because it does not clear user search queries or provide any valuable information. It is important to write high-quality, original, trending and user intent blogs. This provides something valuable to users and Google also considers it as valuable. Update the content of your page that has low quality content.

There are some strategies through which you can write quality content. Analyze the content of your competitors and identify the content gap. Now take the content gap as topics and include it in your blog content. After this, write higher quality and valuable content than your competitors.

Evaluate E-E-A-T

Google prioritizes E-E-A-T. It stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. This means that the content has been written by an expert person who has experience and authority in the specific niche or field. Also he is trustworthy. Google seriously considers if a person is expert in a field, then he can write such type of content.

For this ensure that the blog is written or analyzed by an expert person. Add author’s bio, credentials and give reference to reputable sources.

Improve User-Experience

The website may witness ranking drop after Google update even after high quality and valuable content. This can be because of poor website structure, non-mobile friendly websites or slow page loading speed. All these factors result in poor user-experience. As it has been stated earlier that Google seriously considers and prioritises user-experience. Go through the website and identify whether it has issues that have been defined above or not. If it has then fix the problem and improve user-experience.

Observe Technical SEO

Technical SEO is also an important part of SEO. If the content and user-experience both are good, then also check for technical SEO. Check for crawl errors, improve structured data or review internal links. 

Maybe Google is not crawling your website properly because you may have no-index tag or blocked in robots.txt files. Also improve structured data so that it will be easy to crawl in crawling your website. Moreover, review the interlinking of websites. All of these are some of the factors that result in a drop in Google Ranking.

Conclusion

Google core updates are unavoidable but their impact does not have to be destructive. By understanding the algorithm of ranking volatility, solving technical issues and updating content, you can regain your website performance. Moreover, it will result in an increase in organic traffic.