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As we all know, Google has just been pelting us with updates, it seems like every time the wind changes direction there’s a new one. Most recently, Google’s product reviews and the September broad core update were ongoing and wrapped up on September 26th.
With both updates running at the same time, users across the SEO community were trying to figure which update impacted their site. There seems to be lots of frustration around these updates which is definitely no surprise.
One user from SEO roundtable commented about how these continuous updates are blindly impacting sites and changing the game for SEO. But now that they are both done, many users are now looking at the damage to their page.
Rundown on the Broad Core & Products Review
Both the broad core and product reviews updates had and continue to have impacts on user sites since the first few days they both launched. Google’s fifth product reviews update launched on September 20th and has already had users talking.
Its launch came just a little over a week after the most recent broad core update, which was on the 12th of September. Product reviews update took only 6 days to finalize while the broad core update spanned over a two-week rollout period.
Some were wondering if one update might be stronger than the other since the broad core targets all kinds of content, unlike product reviews which looks at a smaller group of content.
It is said that for both the broad core and product reviews update, the update is not to penalizing site content. Instead, as Google repeatedly says, these updates are intended to reward websites and the research behind their content.
The SEO Community’s Take
Many users have been hit and SEO experts across the board are indeed monitoring the impacts closely.
Many started tracking what the updates were doing to sites around the time that the broad core update dropped. After that, they then continued on with the product reviews. Here’s a tweet from Glenn Gabe:
Now that the updates are done (we think), I’m reviewing the domains I documented that surged/dropped since 9/12. Like this surge with the September broad core update. Can you guess what it is based on this? 🙂 👊🚨😜🤖😍👏🤜🤛🕺🐼🍻📈 pic.twitter.com/1TJ4dpSW6t — Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 27, 2022
As Barry Schwartz from SEO roundtable says in his research about impacts of both updates:
“…Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update.”
It should be interesting to see what fallout there is from these updates in the coming weeks. Notably, experts will be watching the updates but especially because of periodic updates.
Yes, that’s right, Google won’t necessarily be notifying everyone if a periodic update is running. That goes for the Google product reviews update and the broad core. Many will simply have to watch and wait for the performance on their site to update.
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