What is the Core Update for Google January 2020?
New Year is the new beginning for everyone be it people, animals, or tech giant Google. Yes, Google! If you’re not aware then let me tell you that Google announced a major update or change to its search algorithm on 13th January 2020. On Twitter, Google announced that it is releasing a core update named as January 2020 Core Update. Though this is not the first core update, Google rolls out thousand algorithm updates each year including core update. Being a broad core update, it will impact all search results on a worldwide scale. This latest core update of Google is surely gonna affect webmasters and publishers. If you’re one of them who runs a website or publish content on it then this article is a must-read for you.
In this article, I will explain everything about core update 2020, what is its impact on your site, and some piece of advice for saving your site’s ranking on Google. Let’s get started now.
What is Google’s Core Update 2020?
Core update sounds very technical if I simply put it then core updates are the ones that affect the organic rankings of many websites. For example, many people see a drastic downfall in their site ranking and some witness a major hike in the rank of the site on Google. As per Google, this rollout is global and impacting search regions and languages. This sees Google wants to continue its transparent policy for communicating the release of algorithm updates.
A brief analysis of Google January Core Update 2020
This is Google’s first core update of 2020. The significance of the core update is closely related to the impact it has on the websites. This update makes significant SERP fluctuations which often results in giving webmasters panic attacks. It also says that the update is focused on improving the search quality by giving users better search results. With this update, a lot of website owners have in fact seen an increase or decrease in their organic ranking positions.
Furthermore, you’ll be happy to know that this update isn’t targeting any specific ranking factor, spam tactic or any type of website. Also, there’s no one thing to address or change if your site is losing ranking or traffic. The key to improving performance in Google Search Results is “Great Content”.
How to check if your site is affected by core update 2020?
It is a fact that with the core update 2020 your site might witness some changes be it positive or negative. You might notice your site experienced a sudden, significant drop in ranking after a Google Core update. How it happened and why? Most website owners and publishers tend to blame the core changes from the update before they consider asking themselves the hard questions:
- Are your pages displaying correctly?
- Did you change anything major on your site?
- Is the loss confined to new users or return visitors?
- It is a specific page that lost the traffic or is it site-wide?
The above questions will help you know the loss of site traffic. In reality, Google updates are one of the rarest reasons for losing the rank of your sites. However, some of the reasons can be broken links on the site, changes in ad placement, less quality of the content, the poor display quality of pages, broken landing pages, etc.
But if your site’s ranking or traffic drops and isn’t caused by any of the reasons above then you’re a victim of core update. In that case, you’re recommended to continue focusing on creating high-quality content that users want.
Bear in Mind: Sites witnessing the drop of traffic or ranking after a core update soon will see traffic recovery after some time.
Some of the reactions of website owners and publishers to the first Google Core Update of 2020:
Google gathered responses and discussions from website owners and marketers about Google core update 2020. Here are some of the responses given below.
- This is a big update for us in the medical sector. Like I said before, we lost in May 2018, we lost in August 2018 (Med), we recovered half in March 2019, we lost the recovery from March in September 2019 and now we made a recovery again to March 2019 or hopefully more…we will see when it’s settled down. We did so many changes on our websites, that I have no idea anymore if these changes made the recovery or not.
- I lost 80% of my traffic started yesterday..I think this update comes with a couple of phase…in late November 2019, I’m noticing a slight drop (20-30%) but yesterday is the huge one…my traffic dropped almost as my website got hit by a manual penalty
- I’m quite surprised, my site started getting around 30% more visitors right after this update. I hope it ain’t just a fluke or a mistake.
Google’s Advice: What webmasters & SEO can do?
Google’s recommendations for webmasters & SEOs whose websites have been affected by Google core update, “We suggest focusing on ensuring you’re offering the best content you can.” When auditing a website, Google suggests considering questions regarding the following four aspects:
- Content Quality – Does the website offer original, high-quality content that isn’t just copied from somewhere? Are the page title and description appealing and do they reflect the content? If you were a webmaster, would you share the content with friends?
- Expertise – Is the content trustworthy? Does the page contain errors? Would you, as a webmaster arriving at the page via Google search, trust the website you find?
- Presentation & Production – Does the content seem to be well researched and well-produced – or does it seem to be mass-produced fodder? Are there too many ads? Does the page load appropriately on all devices?
- Competitive Comparison – Does the website offer added value when compared with its competitors? Does the content fulfill the user’s expectations?
Final Thought!
In a nutshell, after reading this entire article, I hope now you completely understood the holistic concept of Google Core Update 2020. I just only want to tell you that don’t get fret by the update just follow Google’s advice and you’re golden!
Kindly comment below if you have any query and get in touch with for more updates.
