“Take a bad website and make it better,” Paul McCartney never actually sang – but, in any case, it would be good advice for webmasters whose sites have recently been negatively affected by Google’s June 2019 Core Update. Even by Google’s admission, it was a major update…
It was also notable for being the first core update that Google announced ahead of time. Since the update went live on June 3, it’s not too hard to see how it has affected sites for the better or worse.
The story of Google’s June 2019 Core Update
Google’s public Search Liaison Danny Sullivan took to Twitter to break the news about the update, which was rolled out about five days later. Sullivan admitted that the search giant had only decided to talk about the update because it was set to have a “definitely noticeable” effect on SEO.
He also tweeted that the company, moving forward, aims to reveal more about its updates to help prevent website owners feeling puzzled when their SEO profiles take a sudden hit. This openness was greeted warmly by SEO experts, but some soon had unexpected work on their hands…
Heaven and havoc: discernible effects of the update
While the traffic of some websites remained consistent and steady, other sites were blighted. Consider the example of the Daily Mail‘s UK website, which shed half of its daily traffic from Google the day after this wide-ranging update was enacted.
That’s according to Jesus Mendez, the SEO Director at the operator, MailOnline, responsible for that website. However, this is only a high-profile example of the chaos brought by the update, with several health sites also reportedly affected.
Nonetheless, sites strong in brand recognition before the update, like online retailers, actually saw improvements to their SEO. It’s not entirely clear why; in a Webmaster Hangout, John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, insisted that, with core updates, “there is no specific thing where we’d be able to say you did this and you should have done that”.
What can we decipher from the June 2019 Core Update?
With Google still somewhat cagey about exactly what the update has changed, this leaves the SEO community to attempt to investigate the matter itself. Interestingly, some sub-domains could have lost traffic even as traffic to the main domain remained resilient.
Nonetheless, it’s possible to tease out a few dos and don’ts about the content on your site. Publishers with content cobbled together quickly and cheaply faced ranking struggles, while it looks like some excessively long content pieces were penalised by Google.
If you think that your website content’s quality might have been the reason behind your traffic troubles, refreshing that content doesn’t have to be too difficult. With a phone call to 01325 582112, you could ask our agency to provide you with new content carefully written by our skilled copywriters.
We can include copywriting as part of a varied SEO package, but you should remember to check that your website isn’t bogged down with excessive, potentially SEO-busting advertising.
