The update took 19 days to roll out and had a noticeable impact. A Google spokesperson confirmed that the August 2024 core update is now fully rolled out. It began on August 15, 2024, and ended 19 days later on September 3, 2024. This update brought about a lot of changes and movements in Google search results.
This update is not like a typical update. The August 2024 core update addressed feedback Google has received since the September 2023 “helpful content” update, which negatively impacted many small, independent publishers.
What has been observed since
A movement, especially for some sites affected by this previous update. A recent survey showed that the majority of respondents were negatively affected by the latest major update. Here are the results of the survey.
- 44% said their rankings/traffic decreased (1 votes)
- 27% said their rankings/traffic increased (993 votes)
- 29% said there was no change (1 votes)
Overall, while some sites saw improvement after the September 2023 update on useful content, these recoveries were limited. The majority of sites did not see any real improvement, and many even saw further declines or remained at the same level.
A classification problem
During the first four days of the August core update, a major ranking bug was detected, but it was fixed four days later. So you should ignore the fluctuations you see during those first few days. Instead, compare Google's ranking and traffic data from this week to the weeks leading up to the August update.
What Google said about the August update
John Mueller, Google's search attorney, said the update aims to improve the quality of search results by highlighting content that is actually useful and reducing the visibility of content created solely to rank well in searches. He added that the update takes into account feedback from creators and other users, particularly in support of small, independent publishers creating original content.
Google also released additional advice on its help pages for those affected by this update.
Regarding previous major updates:
- The March 2024 update began on March 5 and ended 45 days later on April 19.
- The November 2023 update ran from November 2nd to November 28th.
- The August 2023 update took place from August 22 to September 7.
What to do if you are affected?
Google recommends that you don't take any specific actions to recover from a core update. A drop in rankings doesn't necessarily mean that something is wrong with your pages. However, Google does offer a list of questions to ask yourself if you're impacted. It's recommended that you continue to build useful content for users and not to search engines.
In conclusion, Google encourages constant improvement of websites and their content. Future updates may improve ranking and traffic, but it is important to work on making the site useful for users first and foremost.
Rossitza Mavreau, Lead Traffic Manager SEO SEA Analytics at UX-Republic
