Businesses functioning in SEO are well-versed with the fact that Google algorithm updates may affect page rankings. Algorithm changes take place daily to enhance user search experiences, but once in a blue moon, there is a bigger “core” update. Focus on enhancing at least one search aspect, like backlinks or local spam.
The recent Google Core Update in June 2019 was unusual as Google pre-announced the update, instead of website managers discovering about the update by checking their rankings changed tremendously. It was announced by Google SearchLiasion on Twitter prior to the update it was rolled out.
Similar to any Core Update, the effects were pretty clear but the reasoning behind the effect was vague.
Few News Sites Take A Big Hit
A few news providers witnessed a downfall in rankings after the Core Update. For instance, the British news site DailyMail recording about a 50% drop in traffic. While cryptocurrency news site CCN, which declared to shut down after a 71% drop in mobile traffic and nearly 90% drop in daily revenue after the core update.
A Boost In The Video Carousel Results
The Core update’s effects were not only restricted to search traffic, but there were significant changes to the layout of the SERPs, following more videos carousels visible on desktop searches. This led to video results ranking higher against text-based results on SERPs.
An SEO is supposed to implement strategies to rank higher in search results, irrespective of the need to compromise the user’s search experience. If your site was hit by the June 2019 Core Update or Diversity Update lately, it was as RankBrain explained that your site lacked user optimization.
During the Core Update roll-out, yet another change was about to waive, the Google Diversity Update:
As acknowledged by the official Google SearchLiasion tweet, the Diversity algorithm change will impede about two listings from the same domain on the first search results page.
The update aims at displaying a more varying range of results to any given query, to impede one site from dominating the SERP. In short, This particular update is aimed at restricting SERPs from displaying multiple results from similar websites.
On the basis of feedbacks and reviews, Google discovered that at present Google search result displays similar domain for about 5 times for the same keywords.
Google stated, “This updated has been designed to yield new search diversity in our search results.” Google further added, “Owing to this diversity Google revamps. You won’t be able to notice more than two similar sites in search results.”
The search engine giant further claimed that Google Site Diversity Change is likely to treat subdomains as a primary domain. In a few instances, Google retains displaying more than two results from the same site when it’s pertinent. For example, branded queries will highlight more than two results from a similar domain.
This particular update began and concluded in the middle of the Core Update (June 4-June6).
The hype couldn’t match the impact of the update. The impact was minimal. As per the Moz report analyzing average diversity crosswise, page-one SERPs using a dataset of 10,000 keywords, very petite change was noticed in SERP diversity in the span of 30 days. But, average diversity enhanced marginally, from 90.23-90.72%.
The Diversity Update is known for restricting the number of times your domain emerges on the SERP. You need to ensure that your content is assigned crosswise varying platforms and mediums.
It might be either knowledge graph, press mentions, YouTube, Wikipedia or social media links. If your content is available on numerous websites, then you don’t need to be anxious about site diversity algorithms not displaying your content.
If you follow Google’s quality instructions, you don’t need to fear Google algorithm update tanking your traffic. A website must be well-maintained and thereby enhance user experience.