Google's Core Update Overview

Speaker 1 0:00

All right , Some major , major major events in the SEO world .

Speaker 2 0:04

Oh really .

Speaker 1 0:05

No , not really . Actually some big events , so we've been away . While we were away , google was rolling out a core update . So a core update . They do this . As you probably don't remember , google rolls out updates all the time .

Speaker 2 0:20

Yes , I do remember that .

Speaker 1 0:21

Like dozens and maybe even hundreds of updates per year . A core update they typically do once or twice a year and it's a much bigger update . It generally applies to not the little things that you're doing on your website , like not your tags and not even your pages , but your general approach to SEO . They are updating the methodology they use to rank websites , so it's a much deeper update . That's why there's not as many of them , and so , as a result of a core update , some websites are going to see a dramatic decline in traffic and other websites might see an increase in traffic . Now this update just completed . On March 27th . It completed the rollout .

Speaker 1 1:09

Oh very recent , Very recent . So I haven't seen personally any sites be negatively affected by this Yet . Yet my consultant clients probably will not be affected by this . It's very rare because they're pretty much doing the right stuff in terms of SEO , I would hope . Yeah , right , the types of sites that are going to be affected usually are , unfortunately , like small business owners , people who are doing their own SEO . You may have gotten some bad SEO advice . You may just be approaching it wrong . Those , in my experience , are going to be the sites that are hit negatively . So this episode , I'll go over the guidance that Google gives how to figure out if your site has been negatively affected . Yeah , Because one thing that happens during these updates and I guess especially the buzz has happened a lot with this last update is tracking tools get messed up .

Speaker 1 2:06

So tracking tools are . You know , there's tons of SEO tools out there to tell you where you're ranking and do all this stuff for you . That's technically against the rules , Like Google , like those tools are going against Google guidelines . So often when there's an update , those tools get sort of I'm going to say thwarted . They just get messed up because what they're doing Google's trying to prevent what they're doing anyway because it's scraping data .

How to Check If You're Affected

Speaker 1 2:30

So when you think about it , those tools are , they're just querying Google over and over and over and over and they're going through all the pages . That sort of thing costs Google money , because Google their big expense is probably computing power and the more people who are doing that running , say , thousands of searches per second , which you can do it's going to increase the demand on Google's resources . They don't want you to do that . Google doesn't want you to do that . So when there's a big update like this , a lot of times these tools get messed up , Relying on an outside tool to track your rankings .

Speaker 2 3:04

Other than .

Speaker 1 3:05

Other than Google . Yeah , you may or may not be able . You're probably not getting accurate information to begin with , but you may not be able to identify if you have been hit by this . The way to identify if your website has been hit by this is to use Google Search Console .

Speaker 2 3:21

Okay .

Speaker 1 3:22

And that's the tool you should be using to track your rankings .

Speaker 2 3:24

And that's what you've been saying all along it is the only tool you should be using .

Speaker 1 3:28

It is straight from the source .

Speaker 2 3:30

So why are these other tools there ?

Speaker 1 3:32

They make money , they make money .

Speaker 2 3:34

Are they telling people that they have better rankings than they do ? Yeah , oh .

Speaker 1 3:38

Oh , I don't know .

Speaker 2 3:40

I don't know about that ?

Speaker 1 3:41

Probably not , but this sort of thing used to be okay . I remember years ago and these other tools there weren't that many of them , which is the reason that they were kind of considered to be okay and as they grew , Google made a decision we don't want this . It's just getting out of hand . And I used to use one of these tools called oh man , I don't even remember what it was called , but it was really really good kind of stop allowing this that tool that I was using said that they had to make a big decision .

Speaker 1 4:14

Everybody doing that in the industry had to make a big decision . Do we keep doing what we're doing and fight Google and try to escape Google , or do we go along with Google's guidelines and kind of be on their team ? The website I was using decided to go along with Google and they said so we're no longer going to provide ranking information . Lots of other companies still do try to do that . Just understand you're not going to be getting accurate information .

Speaker 2 4:41

Good to know .

Speaker 1 4:42

Or at least not as accurate as you would be getting . It might be pretty accurate , but better information would come from Google Search Console .

Speaker 2 4:48

Google it .

Speaker 1 4:48

So that's how you determine if your website is hit from a core update like this and what you are looking for .

Speaker 2 4:54

Yeah , wait , how do you do it ?

Speaker 1 4:56

So you look at the number Go to . Google , google Search Console , and you look at your number of impressions in Google Search Console . Yeah , if you don't know how to do that , you should visit my site , where there's a guide on how to do that .

Speaker 2 5:08

Can you put a link in the podcast ?

Speaker 1 5:10

I will put a link in the podcast link in the podcast . I will put a link in the podcast and you look at the impressions over time and you should look at probably the last at least three months and you will see a fairly dramatic decline in the number of impressions .

Speaker 2 5:23

If you were hit ?

Speaker 1 5:24

If you were hit starting , the earliest possible would be mid-March . Oh , so it's very recent , yeah , and it's possible that it won't even be evident yet . That's the thing . Like this is so new that you might not notice , okay , but it's certainly a good idea to go check and also to get in the habit of checking Google Search Console to see how you're doing .

Speaker 2 5:44

Absolutely .

Speaker 1 5:44

See how your website is progressing . If it is progressing , hopefully it is . You're listening to this , that's right . Okay , so what does Google say you should do if your website ?

Speaker 2 5:56

is a hit by this . What do you do ?

Speaker 1 5:58

And the guidance , unfortunately , is pretty vague because

Why SEO Tracking Tools Get Thwarted

Speaker 1 6:02

it's not a specific thing . They come right out and they say there is no single action you can take . It is nothing , there's nothing wrong with your pages . You might have perfect technical SEO with your pages . You might have perfect technical SEO , but what it means is that you are not creating what Google would consider reliable , helpful , people-based content . Remember helpful content ? There was an update . They literally called helpful content .

Speaker 1 6:26

We talk about it to no end on this podcast like making your blog a resource , making it useful , making it valuable to people .

Speaker 2 6:33

Yes , that is doing SEO , and that's a place to come home to .

Speaker 1 6:37

Sure , if you're writing your blogs and you're creating your content because you think it's good for SEO and you're doing it based on what you're guessing is good for SEO . I will tell you that's bad SEO . That is what Google is trying to eliminate .

Speaker 2 6:52

They want it to come from the heart .

Speaker 1 6:54

I mean , when you think about it , if you were Google , would you want to ? And you have your customers , right ? Your customers come to you , they search for things and you send them to websites . You want those customers to keep coming back . Yes , so would you send those customers to websites that are just creating shit for SEO ?

Speaker 2 7:10

No .

Speaker 1 7:11

You wouldn't . And again , the reason why the core updates are , I think , more frequent is because the rise of all these AI tools and they're going to do everything for you , and so Google has . We talked about this in an episode late last year . Google literally did hundreds of thousands of tests to identify AI generated content , so Google is on top of this . I think this is it's a pretty dynamic time in SEO right now because AI is changing a lot of this . It's there's a lot of new crap out there .

Speaker 2 7:42

Yeah . So what you're saying also is that all of these blogs , slash tools , slash sites , slash software that say just plug in these words and we'll write your blog for you .

Speaker 1 7:55

Pretty terrible . Usually . Yeah , if that's how you're creating your blog , all you're doing is scraping together little bits from other websites , because that's all AI is doing it's just getting other bits from websites on the internet . So Google does go a little bit beyond that . However , google has a what they call a quality rater guideline , and it is what they give to people who they hire to identify what a valuable website looks like . So Google doesn't make the decision . Google doesn't necessarily decide automatically . This is we think this is what a helpful website looks like .

Speaker 2 8:30

Okay .

Speaker 1 8:30

What they do is they hire , or have hired in the past , tens of thousands of people and they call them quality raters and they give them a guideline , which is like a PDF that's , I think , like 2000 pages long , how to evaluate websites and then , based on the information they get from those people , they kind of reverse engineer their algorithm Google does , so that they can identify what people report as being good websites . That's kind of how Google works .

Speaker 2 8:58

My scrambles , yeah , yeah , yeah .

Speaker 1 8:59

That's OK , it's you don't . You don't need to remember . Ok , that was just some fun information for me . So Google does give a a bunch of questions that you should ask yourself . Ok if you were hit by a core update ? Now , this is also just good SEO ,

What To Do If Your Site Was Hit

Speaker 1 9:15

okay . So you should be asking yourself these questions regardless . I'm going to read off some of these questions , but there's literally way too many . You can go and read that 2,000-page PDF if you'd like . It's fascinating information .

Speaker 2 9:29

Oh , my goodness .

Speaker 1 9:30

I can't even make it to page five , but there are summaries of them different places . You could do a Google search for something like Google quality rater guideline questions .

Speaker 2 9:42

And rater is R-A-T-E-R . Rater , rater , yeah Not raters of the lost art .

Speaker 1 9:47

Correct . Correct , but here let's cover some of these questions .

Speaker 1 9:51

Okay . So Question number I'm just I'm going to number these , even though I'm just doing a few of them . Does the content provide original information , reporting , research or analysis ? So right there , if you're using AI to generate your content , I would say the answer is no . Now then ask yourself are you providing original information , reporting or research , or are you just regurgitating something else you saw online ? Does the ? This is question number two . Does the content provide a substantial , complete or comprehensive description of the topic ? So this would be . This would be like content hubs . I don't know if we've really talked about content hubs . I have a lesson on content hubs . I'll link that below too .

Speaker 1 10:34

Oh very nice . Content hubs are a way of structuring your hopefully resourceful blog information into topics . So lots of blogs are just random , they just have all you might have a bunch of . You might have a topic really well covered on your blog , but it's not structured to be a what we would call , in this point here , a comprehensive description . So a content hub would be structuring it different . So you're so it's . That is , more of a guide on a particular topic , like , let's say , you have a blog on , like , the best parks in Brooklyn to take pictures of your kids , so a comprehensive guide would probably cover a bunch of the different parks . Now each blog article would be a single blog , a single article but they'd all be under the content hub .

Speaker 1 11:20

Yes , you would have parks yes , exactly that's exactly so that that would be a what we google just described as a substantial , complete or comprehensive description of the topic .

Speaker 2 11:31

Okay , okay already , just those two things make me ready to go to sleep yeah , so I'm gonna look for something that's a little more exciting .

Speaker 1 11:39

Okay , so those are two relating to topics . Okay , so Google actually breaks these questions down into the different categories . Those were probably the most boring . Oh my gosh , Okay , good we have a couple more categories I'm going to go through . I'm just going to read one from each category . Okay , expertise questions . Okay , so this is relating to your expertise when you create something . Okay , expertise question number one yeah , does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust

Google's Quality Rater Guidelines Explained

Speaker 1 12:08

it ?

Speaker 2 12:08

Oh , okay , okay .

Speaker 1 12:09

So this goes along with a whole bunch of other stuff . That's a big topic in itself . But if there's something that makes you look more trustworthy like a badge , an award , you can link to any sort of credentials or anything that would make you . If you were looking at your site , what would make you think , oh , I trust this person because of X , y , z , whatever that X , Y , Z ?

Speaker 2 12:31

Aren't there so many badges that you just buy People ?

Speaker 1 12:33

just buy them there are , so look for the most trustworthy . Oh okay , not just any badge . I can create a dozen badges in the next half hour , but is there something that would make you look more trustworthy ?

Speaker 2 12:47

Okay .

Speaker 1 12:48

Are you a member of your city's business council for small business Right ? That would make you look pretty trustworthy .

Speaker 2 12:56

Yeah , yeah , better bureau , business , business .

Speaker 1 12:59

I think their days are gone . Oh , they keep sending me emails , exactly . Another question is the content written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well . So this is kind of the same thing Show like not only that you're trustworthy , but that you have the right experience . Okay , you can be trustworthy , but if you're a car mechanic talking about photography , you don't have the right experience .

Speaker 2 13:25

Correct , you don't have the right expertise .

Speaker 1 13:28

I'm sure the next section , presentation and production questions , so how your website is put together . Question number one does it display well for mobile devices when viewed on them ? Okay , that's pretty important . These days I'm going to assume most people listening are on Squarespace or Wix or ShowIt or whatever and that you've got taken care of . But do look at your website on a phone .

Speaker 2 13:50

Yeah , it's different .

Speaker 1 13:52

I have experienced many , many , many , many times when dealing with new clients and we look at their website on a mobile and the response is like oh shit , and just nobody has ever looked . I've done that myself , actually .

Speaker 2 14:07

Yeah , if I was a client , oh dear .

Speaker 1 14:10

Yeah . What is the impression that you have if you look at somebody's website on mobile and it's just a jumbled mess ? Do you trust that company ?

Speaker 2 14:17

No , you think get your shit together yeah exactly so do that . I'm trying . I'm not talking to you , I'm still trying .

Speaker 1 14:25

Okay , question number two from presentation and production , production . One more time Production Is the content mass produced or outsourced to a large number of creators . I would throw AI production into this category .

Speaker 1 14:41

You got to be . If you're using AI to generate , it's hard to harp on AI a lot , but if you're using

Key Questions Google Wants You to Ask

Speaker 1 14:46

AI to generate your content , at least create a draft , creates the core yourself and then use AI to polish it and make it . You know , flesh it out , make it look a little better . To polish it and make it . You know , flesh it out , make it look a little better , present a little better . Don't do the reverse .

Speaker 2 15:03

Don't use AI to create the core concept . Oh really .

Speaker 1 15:05

Yeah , don't do that .

Speaker 2 15:06

Oh , because that's what I've done .

Speaker 1 15:07

Well , what you could do is use AI to like .

Speaker 2 15:10

Just start a first draft .

Speaker 1 15:12

Not even start a draft , but like give you ideas , do some brainstorming , don't create the draft . Create the draft yourself If you're not creating your own . If you're not creating the draft , then your draft is just a mix mash of other websites , information .

Speaker 2 15:27

Yeah .

Speaker 1 15:28

Okay , that's not what you want to do no . And the final section . Here . I'm just going to take one question from this . This is comparative questions , so comparing your website to others .

Speaker 2 15:38

Okay .

Speaker 1 15:39

And the question that I'm going to take here is going to sound familiar .

Speaker 2 15:42

Christian .

Speaker 1 15:43

Mack , Does the content seem to be serving the genuine interests of visitors or does it seem to solely exist by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines ?

Speaker 2 15:54

Okay , Dun , dun , dun dun .

Speaker 1 15:56

Yeah , okay , so if I haven't drilled that point home enough , there it is again . I am not doing my job .

Speaker 2 16:03

Yeah , because whenever I do use AI , it's so cliche .

Speaker 1 16:09

Yeah , I mean AI . As great a tool as it is , ai is not an experienced expert in anything aside from collecting information .

Speaker 1 16:20

Right , if you wanted to write a paper on how AI creates responses , then I would probably use I would ask to do that , but other than that , like you're the expert here , ok , so the , the information , the content , the idea , the concept has to be coming from you . You are the expert . Use AI as a tool to polish it , not the reverse . Ok , the concept has to be coming from you . You are the expert . Use AI as a tool to polish it , not the reverse .

Speaker 2 16:40

Okay , that's good to know .

Speaker 1 16:41

Okay , so go check Google search console .

Speaker 2 16:44

Yes .

Speaker 1 16:44

I would say , check it now . And because these things core updates are , they don't roll out quickly , the effects might not be seen quickly . Check in a few weeks , in a month , see if you've been hit .

Speaker 2 16:54

Hope you haven't .

Speaker 1 16:55

Hope this helps . And again the reason that I say there no . And again the reason .