Google Core Update May 23 - June 3, 2021

Google *finally* confirms 11 days later.

[TalkativeEditorial]

Yower, SEMRush is freaking out. A few of the other sensors seem to be spiking too.
This is hell. Never know what to do anymore, where to look...or what is actually evening happening.

[yollo03]

@ReBar Thank for you taking the time to explain this. Must be irritating dealing with it. I think EU is planning some legislations on this, I am not sure US will be bound to it though.

[mzb44]

Google makes an update that it says nothing about (core or whatever color it is) with a big impact. And now it makes an update it announces and nothing happens.

In regards to core updates, it would be the very first time (out of like what, close to 10 core updates) that they would do this?

Every single time up until now when they said there's a core update we saw significant changes within 24-48 hours way bigger than any "unannounced update". Every single time. Not one exception.

I get that we're skeptical of Google but why is it so hard to believe they did actually do an update on the 22nd and it wasn't a core update?

I know they're beating a dead horse when they constantly say "we're doing updates all the time" and it's already a cliche now, but they kinda really do updates all the time though :-)

Why specifically do so many think that on the 22nd there was a core update? Why specifically a core update out of hundreds of other options?

[Abaros]

@mzb44

I did not say it is core, I suggested that it is not relevant.

We get lost in irrelevant details, no one knows what happens in a core update, who cares then. I don't question that the update is of the type Google says.

There are only two types of updates, those that affect us and those that don't.

Now I say it clearly, Google is a totally opaque company, which promotes conspiracy theories of all kinds, is a company that does not respect the content creators, takes everything it wants from us, and today without giving practically nothing in return, Google has become our competitor, and as for the information it gives, it is never clear, it is always a yes but no, a maybe yes but I can that maybe it is that no, which makes it an unreliable company.

I question everything they say, and I have plenty of reasons to do so.

[ichthyous]

I get that we're skeptical of Google but why is it so hard to believe they did actually do an update on the 22nd and it wasn't a core update?

I did an update on the 22nd too...I updated the amount of time that I expect to be able to retire, since Google has stopped sending me any reliable traffic. New date, May 2050...oops I'll be dead ;)

[mzb44]

I question everything they say, and I have plenty of reasons to do so.

Oh, me as well for sure. But not always blindly*. Some things you can just verify yourself. It's an extreme position to hold that they intentionally lie every time**.

*Not referring to you personally.
**Again, not you.

[renatovieira]

After 3 days of traffic records, the huge slope comes downhill. Just another lost day :-|

[yollo03]

Semrush Australia is already updated for Friday, 6.8 on semrush, the update is indeed rolling out...

[topaz]

seems obvious to me that the abnormal rollout is due to this being a half-and-half core update.

[MayankParmar]

When they released the December core update, I noticed improvements only a few days before the rollout ended.

Semrush AUS is orange already.

[yollo03]

I am seeing movement in my niche, my competitors (as usual) are up in rankings.

[Caty]

We have a news site in Russia, and our traffic from Google dropped dramatically in February. No change now

[karob]

I've been working on my website since December 2020, and now I am on 2-5 Page from my keywords! I'm hoping to be on the first page of Jun. On mobile, my competitors have a maximum of 5-10, while on desktop, they have a maximum of 3-50.

[MayankParmar]

UK Semrush is 8.5 :)

[whoa182]

Looking at the results on Google from the UK, yah, things are moving now.

[mzb44]

Seems like semrush is picking something up.

itshappening.jpg ?

[oni_oni]

Yes, only US not yet updated for now

[Neohippy]

US SEMrush now showing 9.3(!)

NOT a good day for us so far in UK. Am trying not to panic though; still a lot of rollout to go, and even after that, it could all turn around in another month.

Can we just, like, fast-forward, please? Feel like I'm gonna tear my hair out waiting & worrying, haha!

[RedBar]

Yesterday afternoon into evening UK delivered more traffic and I ended up at 68% however this increase in traffic suddenly, almost stopped at 22.00 UK time and went back to its "new" level.

US traffic was at 55%.

I'm just coming up to 12 hours of my Googleday and I'm at 29%.

[yollo03]

It will take a few days for the dust to clear

[renatovieira]

Huge drop today... semrush on fire...

[BushyTop]

Yep.... Semrush sensor is off the scale. UK

[yollo03]

Quick observation: The amount of android apps listed at the top of the page for some keywords in my niche dropped down the page, some have vanished. Do you see the same in your niche?

[mosxu]

Moving the cheese is the main thing happening on my sites

No buyers are seeing my ads all I get is junk traffic

[BushyTop]

Having indexation issues again. One of our main pages has completely disappeared.

[yollo03]

My main keyword disappeared but I am not really concerned. It will take at least a few days to clear and even then the core web vitals are due soon. If you got a boost or lost rankings it could be temporary.

[penitentman]

@Oni @Bushy Why are you guys saying SemRush is only reporting on UK volatility right now? If you compare the databases US vs UK on SemRush it's the same volatility right now.

[yollo03]

Semrush updates the volatility in the morning time of that country. So when it was morning in UK semrush updated but it was late night in the US. UK was updated while US was not. Later on when it was morning in US it updated the volatility.

[westcoast]

No changes at all yet in our vertical (entertainment/education) that I can see.
Traffic so far normal (well, normally low and depressing) for a Friday morning.

[RareBit]

We're not seeing much movement either - UK electrical & manufacturing. Fingers crossed it stays that way! (probably more effective that just carrying on creating great content:)

[westcoast]

BTW is anyone seeing wildly inaccurate results under GSC "Crawled - currently not indexed" ?

( This has been happening for a few weeks now, so not directly related to core update... )

I am showing large numbers of pages under "currently not indexed", but when I use "inspect URL" on most of the entries I get it listed as being indexed: "URL is on Google. It can appear in Google Search results (if not subject to a manual action or removal request) with all relevant enhancements."

But.... on some URLs whose live inspection indicates "URL is available to Google", doing an actual Google search can't find anything, so they don't actually appear to be indexed.

Does anyone else have conflicting / inconsistent data under "Crawled - currently not indexed" ?

[mzb44]

Despite all the tools being hot af right now, does anyone actually see any changes?

I went through like 100+ sites today and am seeing absolutely nothing.

[ichthyous]

After one day of better traffic it seems to be waning again...USA -39% and UK -22% at 12:30pm. Search -20%, direct -23%, home page -42%. I am seeing a pattern of late day traffic these days, so it's possible that it could even out by EOD, but not likely.

[yollo03]

Based on 3 June stats, my impressions spiked by +50%. I received some of my lost keywords back but at very poor positions. That can change over the next week. I can't say I have seen a major impact when compared to some of my competitors. Most of my competitors went up in rankings, I am just waiting for my turn lol

[yollo03]

@Westcoast, I read on Barry's website that google said your pages can get 'technically' indexed but you will get virtually no impressions and traffic for these pages. I am assuming if it is not showing as indexed in GSC then it is technically indexed but you wont get any traffic for these pages.

[EditorialGuy]

Same old, same old. No complaints (at least, not so far).

[universenet]

Same old, same old. No complaints (at least, not so far).

Maybe google spiders right now just scaning websites so we wiil see flood after

[MayankParmar]

Yeah, no changes for me.

[jmorgan]

Guess not many are seeing any major changes for now.

[mzb44]

Might make sense. It's a partial core update after all.

Perhaps the more significant changes will come in July.

[Ecopac]

The state of the results in financial services is ridiculous here in the UK. Wikipedia/Investopedia/Citizens Advice/Money advice service ranking for everything.

If I search for a personal loan, I’m looking for a loan. Not the definition of what a loan is. Or what to do if I can’t pay my loan back.

For 9 years I lived and died by Google search traffic, I’ve been to hell and back with them dominating my life. Last Jan 2020 I flew to the top of my main keyword results then in May 2020 it was all taken away again.

I’ve not recovered since and it doesn’t look like I’m going to this time either. I’ve rebuilt my entire site and done everything they want, but it still doesn’t please the Google gods.

After May 2020 however I decided I needed to stop relying on Google and I finally started to look for other sources of traffic. Now I’m doing Ok again without Google traffic and core updates are no longer such big issues for me. Yes I’d still like to do well in Google and I’ll continue to try but now it’s purely supplementary and it feels extremely liberating.

There is life outside of Google!

[mzb44]

The state of the results in financial services is ridiculous here in the UK. Wikipedia/Investopedia/Citizens Advice/Money advice service ranking for everything.

For these kinds of queries they especially only want to exclusively show big, institutional, government etc. sites.

And yes, even if this means showing somewhat less relevant results.

The risk of putting a potential financial scam site on the first page and then get smacked by the gov or bad press is just too high. Showing a bit less relevant results but almost always guaranteed safe ones by putting the "big authoritative sites" everywhere is preferred in these cases.

Honestly I'd just stay away completely from these kinds of niches. There's really no upside to be gained.

If I search for a personal loan, I’m looking for a loan. Not the definition of what a loan is.

They just don't want the risk of recommending you loans and then if someone gets scammed everyone will blame Google.

The bad press / potential gov action would be too great. So they just plaster the definitions everywhere from trusted and authoritative sites.

Like this approach or not, I can certainly at least understand why they do it.

[penitentman]

Finally hit me yesterday at 7pm EST on the dot. Down roughly 25% on my largest blog in law and government vertical. Other blogs are seeing small up and down changes. The last few days were quiet but overall May was very volatile for my blogs. I was surprised the update was announced after all the volatility in May... Hoping for a correction with the "two part update" in July. Good luck everyone it's a bumpy ride.

[renatovieira]

U.S. semrush remains on fire.

[ichthyous]

I'm showing minimal movement in my ranking, no recovery and stuck at a low. Aside from the 2-3 days where traffic recovered, traffic has been abysmal now for three weeks. The gap between CTR and impressions is growing ever wider: [ibb.co...]

I am also wondering, where USA traffic is concerned...perhaps everyone has been cooped up for so long and they are just getting out and not sitting at home on the computer. They're back out enjoying life. I say this because other partner site PV are also low, as is social media traffic and views.

ibb.co Screen-Shot-2021-06-05-at-10-32-04-AM Image Screen-Shot-2021-06-05-at-10-32-04-AM hosted in ImgBB

[RedBar]

Traffic to global still down therefore I have adjusted "excpected" levels to reflect the last 20 days, basically 16th May until yesterday.

This new "expected" level is -40% or 60% of previous average levels.

Home Depot, Wayfair, Homeluf and Pinterest have been the biggest beneficiaries .. you know, those highly descriptive, in-depth product pages with loads of product images ... utterly farcical.

[lee_sufc]

I'm late to the party with this. Been assuming I had been quiet the past week or so due to the weather here in the UK and kids being of school but, wow. My site had been hit hard.

I'm hoping and praying that these results are still moving about and maybe I'll recover a bit? Anyone else taken a hit on the UK serps?

[yollo03]

Is anyone experiencing indexing issues for new pages? I published 2 pages, both were indexed by bing almost instantly. With google it's been over 48 hours and nothing.

[whoa182]

I've seen mostly positive movements here. Both of my websites recovering significantly from the previous core update.

[westcoast]

Huge hit suddenly over the last few hours. Semrush shows our ranks plummeting site-wide. Entertainment / education.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Since today started noticing changes. It is very hard to say what exactly the impact is, but it seems negative right now. Have a reason to believe that in further week SERPs can start moving drastically, and we will see the final result for this update.