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

[javelin]

Something is definitely going on this morning...I haven't had one visit to my home page yet today, nor to most of my most visited landing pages. It's early yet but an 88% decline in direct traffic, 21% decline in searches and a 37% decline in USA traffic compared to an average Sunday.

Semrush sensor is milder today as well. The only red line volatility would be under mobile categories arts and also news. All others have cooled considerably.

Traffic here is a bit more tepid but that is normal for me on Sunday so it is hard to tell. Would be interesting to hear from others who have larger sites to know if something is moving that sensors are not picking up.

[RedBar]

18 hours of my Googleday gone and not yet at 50% of expected Sunday traffic. Improvements in UK SERPs for US unable to supply company websites, this is starting to get messy.

I am also noticing a lot of very thin pages ranking extremely well, as in one poor image and a couple of lines of generic text.

[edited by: RedBar at 5:16 pm (utc) on Jun 12, 2022]

[ichthyous]

Traffic was effectively nil until 11am today...USA traffic is hugely down 63% and search is down 33% at 1pm. Non-USA traffic is normal.

It's easy to write off these huge declines as one day glitches caused by rolling updates, but when it becomes once a week at minimum and is combined with other days with smaller but still significant declines it becomes the death of a business. The update on the 25th has brought a whole new pattern...poor USA traffic across the board, days with very high non-usa traffic and no conversions, all interspersed with days of sudden fall off the cliff drops of 70% that partially recover very late in the day.

[shadowlight]

I am also noticing a lot of very thin pages ranking extremely well, as in one poor image and a couple of lines of generic text.

Trying to train users not to bother looking beyond the top of the SERPs imo which is dominated by ads.

Their just screwing everyone. Publishers, advertisers and users. CPC and number of clicks on ads have increased, this is bad for everyone but themselves.

I have lost all respect for them as a company, complete con artists,

[ichthyous]

I have lost all respect for them as a company, complete con artists

Yes they are...they also screw their paying customers dearly, as anyone who has an adwords account can attest. I keep hoping that these wunderkinds in corporate marketing depts would realize that and cut their ad budgets but I think they just place their chips on all bets because they have enough money. The small business can't do that and is being squeezed out online entirely and in social media too.

This needs to be seen as what it is, a grave threat to small business online....meaning jobs, tax base, and livelihoods.

[LindaFrederick]

I am so thankful for your valuable ideas here

[RedBar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld LindaFrederick :-)

So far today after 14+ hours things are, dare I say it, looking pre-update normal for me, a nice spread of visitors, single and multiple page views, consistent hourly traffic, not on / off, and that's before my USA traffic usually kicks-in ... Fingers crossed this is now the update completed and this is my new normal!

[ichthyous]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld @LindaFrederick

Today is more of the same for me...very high non-USA traffic, while USA is starting the day -55% from a normal Monday. My lowest level pages are receiving lots of repeated visits, while my main category pages are blitzed...my home page is -66%, others down 20%-50% today. This would blow the theory that links are everything, as my most linked pages have fallen through the floor while pages with few links are getting all the visits.

It could be that Google has classified my lower level pages as "informational" or akin to articles so they are showing up for more searches...but that traffic is not producing any conversions. In fact since the day the update was announced conversions basically zeroed out, so it would seem that most people searching for something to buy enter through landing pages showing multiple items on the page, not one single page.

[christianz]

No change so far. For my sites, update rolling out at full steam and on same trajectory.

The Sitewide Snippet Ban (SSB) I was given is also still in effect. All rankings that had any kind of rich result (featured snippet, images, even sitelinks) are removed. Usually that means going from #1 to nothing.

Results which do not have rich features typically are demoted couple of places, but not removed.

I do see some new keywords and some keywords going up, but less than those going down. And I never see new rich results, as you would expect with SSB.

[ichthyous]

My USA traffic is blitzed...still down 37% at 1:30pm. Home page is -66% again. This started on the 25th and stayed way down until June 1st. Then has been up and down since then, but the highs are lower and the lows are abysmal. Typically a two thirds drop in traffic to your home page would imply a penalty. Is anyone else seeing this pattern? Keep in mind that search traffic is actually up 19% today, but the traffic is not going to the home page and it is definitely not coming from the USA.

[javelin]

I do see some new keywords and some keywords going up, but less than those going down. And I never see new rich results, as you would expect with SSB.

Not saying this applies in your case but I have seen that happen when the algo decides to move on a large set of new keywords. Its almost like it decided that your sites "meaning" or "intent" changed. If youve added a lot of content lately it could be a temporary issue but should come back.

[stoneman30]

Hi gang! Long time reader, first time forum poster.

I was hit by the Google Core Update last week. I had seen 20% degradation for about a week prior to last week. Then, Tuesday, June 7th at high noon central standard time, I lost 50% of my traffic in 1 day. The next day, Google announces the core update is done. I figure I'm doomed. I see the 100+ keywords I am tracking in Keywords.com go from spots 1-5 in Google to 100+ (nowhere in the SERPs).

This is an affiliate / info site that I personally have written over the past 5 years off and on. No bad link building schemes. No content farms. Just content written by me with some guest posting links and natural links I've acquired over the years. I went from ~2,000 visitors / day down to < 1,000 visitors / day over night. (it's a small niche site)

Then, a couple of days later, I notice my rankings slowly coming back, but now I'm either ranked in the "People Also Ask" box or my home page is ranking in spots 60-100 for my money keywords, which is very strange. I just walked away disgusted. Not changing anything. The keywords I did Google were littered with generic top authority sites (Amazon, Target) or very thin content sites.

Then, today at noon, all of the sudden 80% of the keywords I was ranking for before the update are all of the sudden back! The rankings may have changed a little, but a lot of them are back in the top 20. I'm kind of scratching my head. I've done nothing to my site since the update. Now, will it stick?

So much for this update being done.

I just wanted to thank all of you for posting your updates. It really helped me to read all of the yo-yo / see sawing this update is doing to so many sites. It made me feel not alone. I'm excited to see my rankings coming back, but I also realize it may all be short-lived.

Thanks again. I'll continue to post updates every day or two.

[mosxu]

David Nunes speaking to Maria Bartiromo on FOX said that it a case of 95% bots than 5% with Twitter no wonder the bounce rate on clicked ads.

Bots help to achieve all the time the desired results

[Martin Ice Web]

As all of you we saw a big positive change yesterday. Lots of converting traffic. I was sure that this will not last long. And today we got hit again. We are back to TOR Traffic, foreign traffic. Traffic is complete mismatched to our items. No engagement at all. If this was an quality update than only for googles pocket.

[RedBar]

My Monday Googleday was going ok until about 20.00 UK time and then it reverted to very low visitor numbers and mostly single page views. This has continued now for some 14+ hours.

If this is the final product then it can be considered by many as an almost complete and utter failure insofar as I am concerned.

[Lisa01]

@stoneman30, did you make any changes to your site?

[engine]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld @stoneman30

At last we have some stability in the SERPs, which means, if it remains stable, we can make some better measurements over the coming weeks.
I'm not so much concerned about daily swings as were at the mercy of so many external factors, such as weekends, public holidays, major sporting events, the weather (good and bad), Net outages, etc. What i want to see is stability over a period of time, even if the quality of traffic is low, which shows where things are good or bad, and i'll have time to make changes, or not, as necessary.

[appie]

My website is drastically dropped ranking and traffic. Kindly suggest how do I solve get back ranking again.

[EditorialGuy]

Our informational travel site's traffic was pretty stable during the update, with very modest growth (which may have had more to do with seasonal factors than with Google).

Our Google traffic has jumped 11 percent in the last several days, compared to the same days in the previous week, but I'd still characterize it as being within a normal range.

[ichthyous]

I am still seeing the same pattern...non-USA traffic is higher than normal except for Canada, which has just vanished for a week. USA traffic ended up -7% yesterday after being down 40% for most of the day. I watched as USA visits ticked up from 7pm to midnight recovering most of the loss. Do you all think that is a normal pattern or even real traffic? Of course not...Google has tightened the noose to kill off all traffic during prime sales hours and then eases later and later into the eve. None of those late night visits amount to anything...no inquiries, no sales for 16 days now.

The one change that I made was to rewrite the title of the home page, but if such a simple change resulted in a 60% daily loss of traffic then Google is in serious trouble.

[RedBar]

Proportionately overall my USA traffic is staying the same but it is starting later in the day than it used to however weeks 21 & 22 were my lowest ever, week 23 picked up to the very lowest of my expectations and -22% v 2021 ... And don't even get me started on the reduction between early 2021 and now, basically it's 50%, it's halved in just over a year meanwhile rankings are at worst the same but most are better.

No need to ask the Gorg where all the traffic is going is there?

[ne0h]

I could not find out any reason for this update. It's literally up and down. see below.

[imgur.com ]

[malkhaldi]

@ne0h + could you tell me what you are using to display this graph

anyone else seeing GA real time stats being wonky yesterday and today? it was working fine for a while today and then all of a sudden, it's weird. like real time showing conflicting stats for organic and social traffic that don't add up? for example my real time stats will tell me there is 1 person on our site from google last 5 min. but if i click on/drill down on the google/organic stat it shows me there are in fact 155 people last 5 min. makes no sense

[ne0h]

Its Jetpack tracking inside wordpress.com

[ichthyous]

Wow...I stand corrected. Traffic started shooting upward this morning, including USA traffic this time. It appears to be real as I am getting real world calls from customers...you know, like the old days. Search is +25% and direct traffic is up 43% so far today. Like many of you, I doubt it will last too long.

[RedBar]

It's supposedly my prime time in the USA and my traffic has almost come to a complete standstill, my SERPs don't seem to have change, investigation tomorrow!

[Alex_1729]

I lost about 20 snippets today (or more), and I seem to be dropping in traffic every day for about a few percent. If someone can give advice on how to perform Seppuku successfully the first time, let me know below.

[mosxu]

I see a massive u turn on performance max campaigns where we registered less zombies now these are being trashed but nonsense traffic.

“1200 clicks in a day and zero conversion”

[Markedd]

Holy molly, Google outdid itself. I just checked for a small console thing review (Gamesir x3) and the first page had two results at the top and then the entire page had eight YouTube videos. I need to upload an image of this, it's hilarious.

Edit: Image added
[url]imgur.com/a/XNks4k8[/url]

[malkhaldi]

semrush sensor is high today
8.5 / 10