Google processes create significant, broad changes to the search algorithms and systems that produce search results that correlate with information collected by Google bots, which becomes knowledge that produces credibility about businesses and individuals.
The ultimate aim for Google is to “understand the world” by filling its Knowledge Vault, aka Knowledge Graph (KG), with all the facts about everything. This undertaking is accomplished by machine learning which means algorithms decide, and humans don’t have any input.
Early this month, Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, spoke at BrightonSEO in San Diego. Most of what he said is not new revelations or process insights, but he did say significant changes are coming to search rankings. If you are already doing the correct SEO methods you should be okay.
"One way to think of how a core update operates is to imagine you made a list of the top 100 movies in 2021. A few years later in 2024, you refresh the list. It's going to naturally change. Some new and wonderful movies that never existed before will now be candidates for inclusion. You might also reassess some films and realize they deserved a higher place on the list than they had before."
One guideline is to make sure that your content is oriented to people first. In other words, it provides helpful information that readers want to bookmark or share with friends.
Some review questions about your content include the following:
Review your content to analyze if webpage content is being created, or has been created, to resolve the questions below. If you find yourself agreeing with the questions, it’s time to reorient your content.
These are the core updates in 2023 as of November 17.
NOVEMBER
08: Google said, heading forward, its reviews system would be “improved at a regular and ongoing pace,” so they would no longer announce future updates.
02: “An improvement to a different core system” than the October 2023 core update.
OCTOBER
A bug negatively impacted Discover traffic.
Rollout overlapped with the October 2023 spam update (Oct. 4).
SEPTEMBER
Google said this update featured an “improved classifier.”
Revisions to Google’s search documentation – including hosted third-party content, changing content dates, and adding/removing content – offered clues about what changed.
This update was felt more within the SEO industry niche.
AUGUST
This update was indeed a big one, and caused a lot of ranking volatility across many verticals in the Google search results. But this update was also surrounded by a very volatile set of weeks prior to the update, making the update itself feel a bit more muted than previous updates.
The above update information was obtained from Search Engine Land.
The search below on “Dragon Grog” was done after some core updates. Back in July, this same search produced very similar results which closely resembled the search results shown below in the Duck Duck Go screen.
But, today the results are very different as Google has zeroed in on the phrase to show the website first organically.
In the Chrome/Google search, notice how the core updates have brought the most relevant result to the top of search results displayed: the website.
In contrast, the Duck Duck Go search results show results related to Dragon Grog but not the most relevant or important - aka the website home page - of Dragon Grog.
Plus, I see how my SEO techniques have contributed to this display in Chrome/Google. But I’m not divulging that because I want you to pay me to improve your search results.
Both browsers had history and cache cleared before doing searches. Searches were done on November 18, 2023.