SEO News You Can Use: May the Force Be With You Navigating Google’s New Update

On Monday — or “Star Wars Day” — while everyone shared “May the fourth be with you” memes across the internet, Google quietly rolled out a rather large core algorithm update. In fact, data companies tracking the search results have touted this core update as one of the biggest from Google in awhile.

This global update kicked off mid-afternoon Monday and it doesn’t appear to be targeting or affecting a specific category of websites or any regions. It does, however, meet the expectations of a standard broad core update by Google, as released every couple of months or so.

The most recent core update prior to this one occurred in January. Before that, there was mass controversy over a supposed secret core update in November, but it turned out specific to local rankings only. Since January’s update, Google has made many changes, some small and some dramatically impacting online businesses. But this core update is expected to have a substantial impact on search results and ranking positions, and it hasn’t even finished rolling out yet.

If you thought your results were jumbled before, just wait until you see what this update has done. The SEO community has reported severe drops in traffic, some claiming to have lost up to 90 percent of their organic traffic on Google. Of course, as should be expected, there are some brands that are benefiting. Check out the different comments and concerns here.

Google has offered advice in the past for sites that are negatively affected by the core algorithm updates and just like before, there isn’t really much to do to recover from the negative impact. But this is a chance to review your website holistically, perform a site audit and figure out where you can simply do better. If you want to read what some of the SEO heavy-hitters are saying about this update, check out Barry Schwartz’s piece on Search Engine Land. This article includes opinions from the likes of RankRangers, Moz and SEMrush and what the teams have found through their monitoring tools.

More SEO News You Can Use

There Are Many Reasons Your Traffic Could be Dropping, but Don’t Panic: At least, that’s Dr. Peter J. Meyers’ message in his latest article for Moz. He discusses how to identify a genuine drop in traffic and how to analyze it in Google Analytics. Meyers offers questions to consider so you can find the true answers or culprits behind your traffic dip. Quell your panic and check out his article here.

You Need a Firm Grip on Enhanced eCommerce From Google Analytics: The Google Analytics plugin Enhanced eCommerce gives you deeper insights into your users’ online behaviors. The implementation of this plugin is not without complications, though. In this in-depth piece, Paul Koks of Online Metrics has broken down the top 15 issues most users of this plugin are facing.

Don’t Throw Money at Strategies That Won’t Work! Test and Experiment to Increase Conversions: In this article on Search Engine Journal, you’ll learn how to practice A/B and multivariate testing so you can better understand your users’ behavior. You can invest in a stronger SEO strategy when you know what works and ultimately boost your conversions. After all, now is not the time to waste money on “what ifs” or “maybes.”

Are You Taking Time Now to Examine Yourself, Your Staff and Your Business? Many companies are doing so, as (hopefully) never again will we experience our businesses running at such a slow pace. Check out this article in which Rise at Seven agency owner Stephen Kenwright explains how personality testing has helped him succeed in his SEO business.

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Editor’s Note: “SEO News You Can Use” is a weekly blog post posted every Monday morning only on SEOblog.com, rounding up all the top SEO news from around the world. Our goal is to make SEOblog.com a one-stop-shop for everyone looking for SEO news, education and for hiring an SEO expert with our comprehensive SEO agency directory.