Google has announced its latest core update, which started rolling out on October 5 and was completed on October 19. This is the second core update in 2023, following the June 2023 core update that affected many websites across various industries.
Core updates are changes to Google’s primary ranking algorithms, which aim to improve the quality and relevance of search results. They can have a significant impact on the visibility and traffic of websites, especially those that do not follow Google’s guidelines and best practices.
In this article, we will explain what the October 2023 core update is about, how it may affect your website, and what you can do to prepare for it and recover from any potential drops in rankings.
What is the October 2023 Core Update?
Google has not revealed much details about the October 2023 core update, except that it is a “broad core algorithm update” that affects all search results globally. However, based on previous core updates and some early observations from SEO experts and webmasters, we can infer some of the possible factors and themes that this update targets.
Some of the likely factors that the October 2023 core update focuses on are:
- Content quality and relevance: Google always prioritises high-quality, original, and helpful content that matches the user’s intent and query. Websites that provide thin, duplicate, outdated, or misleading content may see a drop in rankings after the update.
- E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness): Google evaluates the credibility and reputation of websites and authors based on various signals, such as reviews, ratings, testimonials, references, credentials, awards, etc. Websites that demonstrate high levels of E-A-T in their niche may see a boost in rankings after the update.
- User experience (UX): Google considers how users interact with websites and how satisfied they are with their experience. Websites that offer a fast, secure, mobile-friendly, and easy-to-navigate UX may see an increase in rankings after the update.
- Technical SEO: Google also looks at how well websites are optimised for crawling, indexing, rendering, and ranking. Websites that follow technical SEO best practices, such as using structured data, canonical tags, robots.txt, sitemaps, etc., may see an improvement in rankings after the update.
How to Check if Your Website is Affected by the October 2023 Core Update?
The best way to check if your website is affected by the October 2023 core update is to monitor your organic traffic and rankings using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or third-party SEO tools. You can compare your traffic and rankings before and after the update to see if there are any significant changes.
If you notice a sudden drop or increase in traffic or rankings after the update, it may indicate that your website is affected by the update. However, keep in mind that core updates can take several weeks to fully roll out and stabilise, so you may not see the full impact right away.
Also, remember that core updates are not the only factors that influence your traffic and rankings. There may be other reasons for fluctuations in your performance, such as seasonal trends, competitors’ actions, technical issues, etc. Therefore, you should always analyse your data carefully and look for other possible causes before jumping to conclusions.
How to Prepare for the October 2023 Core Update?
If you want to prepare for the October 2023 core update and avoid any negative effects on your website’s performance, you should follow Google’s general advice for core updates:
- Focus on creating high-quality content that provides value to your audience and answers their questions. Use clear and concise language, avoid grammar and spelling errors, use relevant keywords and phrases, include images and videos when appropriate, etc.
- Establish your E-A-T by showcasing your expertise and authority in your niche. Provide credentials and qualifications of your authors or contributors, cite reputable sources and references when making claims or statements, collect positive reviews and ratings from your customers or clients, etc.
- Improve your UX by making your website fast, secure, mobile-friendly, and easy to navigate. Use HTTPS protocol, optimise your page speed and loading time, use responsive design or AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), use clear and descriptive headings and menus, etc.
- Optimise your technical SEO by following best practices for crawling, indexing, rendering, and ranking. Use structured data to enhance your snippets and rich results, use canonical tags to avoid duplicate content issues, use robots.txt to control what pages you want Google to crawl, use sitemaps to help Google discover your pages, etc.
How to Recover from the October 2023 Core Update?
If you notice a drop in traffic or rankings after the October 2023 core update, you should not panic or lose hope. Core updates are not meant to penalise or reward specific websites, but rather to improve the overall quality and relevance of search results. Therefore, there is no guarantee that your website will recover its previous rankings even if you make changes to it.
However, you can still try to improve your website’s performance by following the steps mentioned above for preparing for the core update. You should also monitor your traffic and rankings regularly and look for any signs of improvement or recovery.
Additionally, you can use Google’s tools and resources to diagnose and fix any issues that may affect your website’s performance. Some of the tools and resources you can use are:
- Google Search Console: This is a free tool that helps you measure and optimise your website’s performance on Google Search. You can use it to check your coverage, indexation, crawlability, mobile usability, site speed, structured data, security issues, etc.
- Google Page Experience Report: This is a new report in Google Search Console that helps you measure and improve your website’s page experience. Page experience is a set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with your web pages. It includes factors such as Core Web Vitals, mobile-friendliness, HTTPS, safe browsing, etc.
- Google Core Update Guide: This is a guide that Google provides to help webmasters understand and respond to core updates. It explains what core updates are, how they work, how they affect websites, and what webmasters can do to improve their websites’ quality and relevance.
We hope this article has helped you understand the October 2023 core update and how to prepare for it and recover from it. If you need any further assistance or guidance, feel free to contact us at Matthew Temple Consulting. We are a professional SEO agency that can help you optimise your website for Google’s algorithms and achieve your online goals.
