Google Broad Core Update May 2022

Google Announces Update

[Brett_Tabke]

Core Update.

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/05/may-2022-core-update

[mosxu]

America’s model of business is bots

[samwest]

Mos - yes, as we suspected for years.

[ichthyous]

Rankings holding steady, core web vitals improved, backlink count increased and traffic from Europe is quite a bit better today. USA traffic is relatively low, but it's a holiday weekend. I have seen traffic to my home page and all of my major landing pages much lower since the update was announced...we're talking 30%-70% declines here. Let's hope it was a blip

[RedBar]

Does G love anyone at the moment? My SERPs seem to be unaffected however Saturdau's traffic was almost half of a regular Saturday meaning, bassically, it was 33% of a weekday.

So far today all, except for two visitors, have been single page views which is very unusual and after 17 hours of my Googelday traffic is half of Saturday's so far ... G definitely seems to be grinding something out / down / in / up / wherever! We've got what, another 10 days to go of this manipulation?

[ichthyous]

A 50% drop seems extreme @RedBar. I ended Saturday -2% in total, - 8% on USA, but my landing pages were still hit pretty hard. I have noticed that direct traffic has dropped almost every day since May 22nd...it's a 2/3 decline in total. Is anyone else seeing this? Is this Google Image traffic in general?

[RedBar]

@ichthyous

At the moment I'm not getting excited ... I've been through every G update since 1998 therefore have seen loads of roller coasters during these "dances", I shall be getting worried if things are not looking more normal be next weekend.

[javelin]

I think something was rolled out Saturday. My traffic for Thurs and Fri was up considerably. Saturday fell through the floor until about 9pm est. Now today on Sunday it has returned to normal and half the day is presently passed.

Not sure what they were doing Saturday but something happened in their rollout being more than just a holiday weekend.

[RedBar]

With 3+ hours to go I have just reached HALF my Xmas Day numbers!

[ichthyous]

@RedBar. We are lucky to have known 'normal' traffic from Google. Really since 2020 and 2021 there is no stable or normal anymore. I go from one mysterious plunge to the next even without announcing a core update. The overall impact is pretty devastating. Google is only a side dish now, not the main course it used to be.

[javelin]

Since noon the Google spigot has been turned off. Nada... Bing and others are firing off though. Gog must be up to something today.

[RedBar]

I'm currently just over 11 hours into my Googleday and have already had more page views and visitors than Sunday.

Something happened post 21.00 UK time last night, a few more PVs and by 23.00 multiple visitor PVs and at the moment looking fairly normal / as expected.

I wonder how long this will last, I doubt it will only be a one hit smack?

[ichthyous]

USA ended -17% yesterday and is starting -61% today. Traffic hasn't budged for hours. My home page has lost ~50% of its page views since 24th. This while my ranking increased for three days straight.

[ibb.co ]

[shadowlight]

Totally unnatural traffic patterns as usual, but on the whole better that it has been since the update. Everything up overall for me, will it last? I hope so…. probably not. Time will tell.

[christianz]

For me everything is down (5 - 20% depending on site) and continues to gradually slide lower, especially one site and specifically English language traffic.

Site that is down the most navigated recent volatility (before this "core update") better than others. What happened, what did I change? I don't know. Only thing that sticks out is that I submitted disavow file with spammy links. I know Google has terrible, lame ranking algos, but maybe they are even dumber than I think and fake backlinks from fake sites are essential these days?

[MayankParmar]

Not seeing any movements in my niche.

[javelin]

@christianz what you said is a curiosity of mine. I have seen arguments for and against using disavow. I wish there was a way to track any real meaning behind its use or not using it.

In other news G traffic has returned, a little lower than normal but is rising back.

Truth be told, everyone here really will not know anything until maybe... and i say maybe this weekend. At least we can get a better sense of real direction and know if we will be up or in recovery mode.

[Dooku]

I discovered that links matter far far far less than what people would ever believe

That is an interesting observation? I can attest to the opposite. But that makes me wonder what kind of back links you receive or add yourself for "seo". From my own data I see that there is a clear difference in which back links matter and which G just ignores.
The back links that actually move the needle are obviously the ones to get and sprinkle in some low(er) quality links also to make it look natural. However from the sort of back links that do move the needle you can also clearly see it has the same pattern as the "big trusted" websites that G favors.......no surprise there.

Only thing that sticks out is that I submitted disavow file with spammy links.

@Christianz, when did you submit the dissavow file, how long ago was this?

[christianz]

@Christianz, when did you submit the dissavow file, how long ago was this?

Early April. According to Ahrefs, this disavow file cut backlinking domain count by half. Every domain I hand checked and verified to be fake website.

If this is the reason for sudden underperformance for this particular site (which used to do better than others), then basically entire long tail / niche segment is dominated by fake / hacked site backlink structures.

[Alex_1729]

I disavowed about 500 blogspot domains in July last year. I haven't noticed much change. If nothing, it helped as I've seen regular growth.

But then, now I'm 50% down in traffic after this update so who knows if it had an impact now, a year later. However, my site has grown since then, so I doubt it. Ahrefs also reported DA drop a bit once I disavowed those domains, as it was a young domain, but as I said, rankings were doing great.

[christianz]

@Alex

I would regard those 500 blogspot domains as one domain. What I did was disavow 50% of top level domains, including blogspot (with all possible subdomains).

I don't think simply disavowing blogspot (with all subdomains) would have any effect in your case. Blogspot has been pure spam farm for ages and Google probably discounts all blogspot backlinks to zero anyway.

[RedBar]

Basically Sunday was 33% of my normal weekday and half of my weekend average.

Monday doubled Sunday but was still 66% of my weekday average.

After 11+ hours of today Tuesday, I am already at Monday's traffic levels.

No spikes, sources looking normal, this is precisely why it's called a roller coaster!

[Alex_1729]

For my informational site (few affiliate posts), Monday was 50% lower than the previous Monday, and today (Tuesday) is about the same. Guess my rollercoaster is still going down...

[not2easy]

@christianz what you said is a curiosity of mine. I have seen arguments for and against using disavow. I wish there was a way to track any real meaning behind its use or not using it.

@javelin - there are reliable references pointing to not using disavow, see this discussion: [webmasterworld.com...]

Older discussions agree, since around 2018.
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

[brumbrum]

Hello guys, I wanted to share something that I see. Since the 26th of May what I see is a ranking drop of some main commercial keywords but that is accompanied by a 20% increase in organic traffic since the 26th. This kinda makes no sense to me - rankings drop and traffic increases... I have to mention that the increased organic traffic does not result in more conversions, quite the opposite, conversions are down to almost zero.

[Markedd]

@brumbrum Welcome to the forum!
I usually see the same thing with new updates (even non-core ones). Keyword bleeding starts, the traffic starts to increase and lower conversions. That's because it's bad traffic, it's either bots or people that are wrongfully guided towards your website by Google. In a few days or weeks, the traffic usually follows suit and also starts to go lower. It's still better than what other people experienced, but it sucks nonetheless.

[brumbrum]

Thank you for the answer @Markedd ! Hopefully when the update is complete things will be back to normal. Who needs increased "zombie" (bad) traffic that does not convert...

[ichthyous]

Looking at the last week I have seen big traffic declines in my home page (-39%) and many of my most important landing pages (-15% to -53%). Search is down -18% overall while direct is -44%.

Traffic losses are wide ranging...USA down 27%, UK -2%, CA -14%, AU -28%. The rest of the world has seen mixed results...some countries -70% traffic loss, others an equal traffic gain.

I continue to climb in overall numbers of terms that rank, but some of my most important terms by volume have dropped from top three to position 6 for example. If you add those up they are far more important than gaining a lot of low volume terms that never convert. I am seeing new sites ranking on terms that have been stable for a long time, and I don't see why...there is nothing there that would cause them to rank so highly. The two sites that Google has favored throughout 2021 are now ranking higher across the board. One is just cookie cutter content used over and over for every city, but it seems to be working.

[MrSnuts]

Hey all,
looks like our main & english language site (11yrs, entertainment/UGC) has lost a good 20% of its organic clicks,
but the other language subdomains of the same site have not been affected at all so far it seems.

Guess the update will be rolled out to other languages later, just thought I'd mention my observation.

Side note: I feel for those of you who have been "hit" similar or worse and still depend on google traffic. That's a toxic position to be in these days, and I'm happy to have escaped that situation myself, so, 20% less g-traffic ain't that much of a heartbreak to me any longer. It's not easy to accept, but the days of profitable webmastering in the old sense have been counted.
I mean, who of us is still mastering that web, seriously?

[christianz]

@MrSnuts

I have seen exact same dynamic in my multi language site with subdomains for different languages.

It's not easy to accept, but the days of profitable webmastering in the old sense have been counted.
I mean, who of us is still mastering that web, seriously?

Soon there will be nothing left to master because web will be completely killed due to deliberate and targeted action by Google.

[ichthyous]

I'm continuing to see that this update has obliterated my direct traffic, but search hasn't been hit that hard and today is up. I've asked here numerous times but nobody has ever ventured a response...is direct traffic mostly traffic from Google images? I'm assuming that people typing the URL in directly has remained stable and is a small fraction of direct traffic