SEO News You Can Use: Could There Be Another Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update for October?

It seems that Google may have implemented yet another search engine ranking algorithm update, just one day after the latest October 2022 Spam Update. On October 22, 2022, many SEO professionals noticed huge swings in search rankings, as reported by SERoundtable. 

 

At that point, this is merely speculation, as there have been no official announcements, nor has it been listed on the Google Search Central website. So if it’s not an update, what could be the likely cause of these changes in Google rankings that web admins are experiencing?

 

There have been speculations that the Google Spam Update was not fully rolled out when the announcement of completion was made, said Barry Swartz of SERoundtable.

 

Another reason could be that the tools used to track rankings were slightly delayed and weren’t reflecting accurately in reports, or perhaps the effects of the spam update were only truly felt the day after completion.

 

The October 2022 Spam Update, announced on October 18, 2022, only took four days to complete and was released globally in all languages. Its main aim is to target phishing sites looking to retrieve users’ sensitive information or implement malware.

 

Most sites shouldn’t have much to worry about; however, if you are concerned about the security of your site, you may want to take a look at upping those security measures, as it could decrease your rankings or lead to certain pages being deindexed.

 

No matter the reason, these ranking reports have caused quite some confusion among SEOs, and we are still determining the actual cause of the reports this past weekend.

 

More SEO News You Can Use

 

Google Universal Analytics 360 Sunset Delayed Until 2024: Enterprise marketers can now enjoy another year of Google Universal Analytics 360, as the sunset has been pushed to 2024. Initially, the date was set for October 1, 2023, but Google has decided to extend the deadline to allow users to make a straightforward transition to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) by July 1, 2024. It also gives Google more time to adjust GA4 to accommodate enterprises. It’s important to note, however, that Universal Analytics properties will still sunset on July 1, 2023. Analytics 360 users can also expect a decrease in user experience between now and the sunset date, so the sooner you move over to GA4, the better. Google also announced some exciting new features to be launched in 2023. These include automatic migration, behavioral modeling, custom channel grouping and campaign manager 360 integration. Read the full Search Engine Journal article here or visit Google’s Marketing Platform for more information.

 

Does Google Recommend the Use of Stock Photography?: In the latest Google Search Off the Record podcast, Google Search liaisons John Mueller and Lizzi Sassman discussed the use of stock images and whether it would impact web image searches. From what we could deduce from Search Engine Journal’s takeaway, although stock photography doesn’t have a negative effect on online searches for web pages, it may not rank that well in image searches. However, using image structured data for web pages could be useful as it can indicate to Google that this is a featured image. This means that your images may qualify to feature in rich results, helping to make your content more discoverable.

 

Does Google Accept Machine-Translated Content Reviewed By Humans?: Google’s latest SEO office-hours tackled the question as to whether or not content that has been translated automatically yet has been edited/received minor tweaks by humans is acceptable for Google. The answer is somewhat subjective and comes down to your judgment in terms of the quality of the content. According to Search Engine Journal and Google’s Spam policies, automated text derived from translation tools reviewed by human translators would not be regarded as spam. Google’s main concern is that the same level of quality remains when the content is translated, as AI-generated content will not always pick up on specific nuances and may sometimes use awkward phrasing.

 

Semrush Study Reveals Interesting Mobile Search Results on Zero-Click Searches: According to a Semrush study on zero-click Google search results, 25.6 percent of desktop searches and 17.3 percent of mobile searches are, in fact, zero-click. According to Search Engine Land, the answer to various speculations as to whether Google was stealing zero-click searches is untrue. This could be due to search query refinement. Interestingly, the study also revealed that users take very little time to decide which result to click on, just 15 seconds on average, to be exact. There have been various studies in the past two years done by SparkToro that are somewhat problematic, according to SERountable’s Barry Swartz. For more information, you can find the Semrush case study here.

 

Google Search Console Experiences Mislabeled Structured Data Errors: On October 25, a mislabeling issue sent many into a bit of a panic as rich results reports labeled “errors” as “warnings.” This issue was fixed on October 25; Google made the announcement saying that these structured data issues would be relabeled in Search Console reports, which would explain any changes experienced in your critical warning status. This does or will not have any impact on your search ranking or rich results displayed; it was simply a reporting issue. Search Engine Land suggested giving it a few days before attending to any critical issues.

 

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