Google’s John Mueller confirmed that technical issues usually don’t cause ranking drops after a core update. The core update ranking problem is more relevant to quality problems, Mueller said, and provides an example of a perceived quality problem where core updates are also not sensitive.
Overhaul of website ahead of core update
The asker wrote that they made a major update to the site ahead of Google’s core algorithm update. After the update, the site rankings crashed and remained crashing for up to six months and still haven’t recovered.
John Mueller discusses core algorithm updates
Here is the question being asked:
“Before we had a design overhaul, our site was ranking well. Our timing was terrible because the core update came out just after it was released and there were some issues with internal links.
We suspect Google has reassessed site quality at this point, but we can address these issues.
Our rankings and traffic plummeted, losing all of our rich snippets in the process, and have been in limbo for the past five or six months.
Are we going to wait for another core update from Google to evaluate our site quality again, or will this happen when the site is recrawled? “
It is useful to know what a core update is
In his answer, John made a suggestion, and then provided two insights into situations that would not normally trigger a rank drop associated with a core update.
Mueller first suggested looking into what a core algorithm update is in order to better diagnose why a site lost search visibility after a core update.
He suggested:
“So I think there are a few things that come together here.
But first, I recommend checking out our blog post on core updates. I think it’s called “What site owners should know about core updates,” something like that.
It’s got a lot of info on core updates, especially about… the kinds of problems we’re working on there and how to fix them over time.
So this is the first thing I do in this situation. “
Insight 1: Core updates use data collected over time
Mueller next provided insight that the problems that could lead to negative outcomes related to the core update were long-standing problems, not technical problems that caused sudden and dramatic changes.
The voice in the video is cut off at the beginning of Mueller’s answer.
“…the information we use for core updates to understand the website is more information collected over time.
If you’re having technical issues when the core update kicks in, your site will suddenly be stuck with this issue.
It does collect more stuff over a longer period of time.
So that means if you’re seeing any impact from a core update, it’s usually due to an extended period of time during which we’ve had issues with core updates that we’re looking into. “
Insight 2: Technical issues are not the same as quality issues
The second insight is that technical issues are usually not the cause of issues related to core updates. Mueller pointed to more quality-related issues.
Mueller also noted that small technical issues like broken links are often not the cause of core update ranking issues.
Mueller continued his answer:
“Also, regarding technical issues, which is usually not a trigger for a core update, or a core update, it’s a bit of a no-brainer on how to deal with a website because technical issues tend to be different from quality issues.
Obviously, there may be some technical issues that may prevent the site from actually being used when the user views it.
But if it’s just a small thing, it’s usually not a big deal.
So if you have a 404 on a page or some broken link or something, that’s not a reason for our quality algorithm to step in.
But our quality algorithm does look for a lot of other things, and they’re all in the blog post.
So I recommend taking a look.
This is also mentioned in the blog post about the improved resolution of the website.
Some of these things will steadily improve over time as we rework your site.
Some of these do require our quality algorithms to run again on the site, which can take a while to achieve. “
Core Update Insights
John Mueller provides some useful advice and insights on core algorithm updates and ranking losses.
- First, it’s useful to be familiar with Google’s core algorithm update interpreter.
- Next, he said that the core update uses information about the site collected over a long period of time. This is something to think about.
- In the end, Mueller pointed out that technical issues don’t really fall into the same category as the typical quality issues involved with core algorithm updates.
Citation
Read Google’s Core Algorithm Update Notes
What Site Owners Should Know About Google’s Core Updates
