Google August 2024 Core Update: Candy or Chaos?

Google’s August 2024 core update, designed to prioritize high-quality content and demote low-value SEO material, was officially launched. This update reflects Google’s ongoing commitment to providing users with the most delicious (relevant) and helpful search results.

Learn more about the previous updates, including tasty tips on what to focus on, recovery from hits, and more:

• Google Core & Spam Update March 2024
• Google Core Update October 2023
• Google Core Update August 2023
• Google Core Update March 2023

Highlights from Google’s Core Update August 2024 Announcement

In their official announcement, Google emphasized the following key points:

• A Sweeter Taste of Search: The update aims to enhance search results by showcasing content that users find genuinely useful.
• Creator Feedback: Google has taken into account feedback from content creators and other stakeholders to inform this update.
• Diverse High-Quality Content: The update seeks to promote a variety of high-quality websites, including smaller, independent sites that offer valuable, original content.
• Site Improvements: Google aims to better recognize and reward websites that have made positive improvements.

Today we released the August 2024 core update. It continues our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.https://t.co/T6Qt0JUoWt

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) August 15, 2024

Improvements to the Core Updates Documentation

Usually, we get little information about what changes and updates are made during Core updates. However, Google has offered up more information this time around and has noted that it has restructured its core updates documentation to provide clearer guidance and information from related resources. The sweetest changes include:

• Consolidated Information: The documentation now includes information from other relevant resources, such as Google’s guidance on traffic drops and the self-assessment tool.
• Reduced Duplication: Google has eliminated redundant information, streamlining the documentation and making it easier to navigate.
• Archived Helpful Content System Section: The helpful content system section has been moved to the archived section of the ranking systems guide, reflecting its integration into the core ranking systems.

These changes will hopefully help website owners better understand the impact of core updates and take informed actions to improve their sites.

ALERT: Google Search Ranking Glitch Clashes with Core Update

We want to highlight that a significant Google Search ranking glitch occurred shortly after the core update’s rollout causing a bit of a sticky situation. While this glitch is unrelated to the core update and has since been fixed, it still had time to affect many websites’ traffic.

This can make it challenging to accurately assess the impact of the August 2024 Core Update at this time. Therefore, as confirmed by Google’s John Mueller, you will want to wait until the core update fully completes its rollout before drawing definitive conclusions about its impact on website rankings.

Sweetly Moving Forward Post-Update

Google’s August 2024 core update is a significant development that aims to improve search quality by prioritizing high-quality, user-centric content. While the recent ranking glitch may complicate analysis, understanding the key points of the update and the changes to the core updates documentation can help both website owners and SEO professionals move forward through this update, and future ones. As the update continues to roll out, businesses will want to monitor its impact and adapt strategies accordingly.

Let’s talk SEO! Our team at cyberlicious® is here to help you understand Google’s core updates and develop a delicious strategy. Contact us today for a consultation; success has never tasted so sweet.