Google released the long-awaited August 2024 core update on Thursday morning. Less than 24 hours later, Google Search confirmed a ranking error, which is still ongoing.
This means that Google Search is unstable right now. And many SEOs and publishers have documented some of what they’ve seen since the rollout of the core update started in August.
Reservation. It is important to note the following which can affect your Google organic search traffic:
What we see. In short, most people see nothing. This is common.
But for the first time, we’re seeing some signs of life for sites that were adversely affected by the September 2023 Useful Content Update.
To be clear, these sites did not “recover” and are nowhere near where they were before the September 2023 helpful content update. However, some are showing increases in ranking and visibility on Google Search.
- Some helpful victims of content updates notice some increases in visibility in Google Search
- No one would classify these increases as “recoveries” yet
- Sites affected by previous core updates, like the March 2024 core update, are also experiencing changes, some positive and some negative
- Some sites that were never hit by a core update are also experiencing changes, some positive and some negative
I documented much of the more detailed talk within the SEO industry at the Search Engine Roundtable.
Glenn Gabe, an SEO consultant, has tracked down a few hundred sites that are adversely affected by the helpful content update. Gabe wrote that 47 of these sites are seeing some small signs of life – some increases in visibility:
- “I’m now seeing more HCU(X) sites going up. Out of the 380+ sites I’m tracking, 47 have gone up since the August core update started rolling out. Note, some have low visibility, but they’ve gone up with the update. Others have greater visibility and rise back nicely.”
House Fresh and Retro Dodo. These two sites received a lot of media attention after their Google ranking issues. Both reported some fluctuations – not full recoveries – in the past few days. Here are those posts:
Why we care. We’re only a few days into a month-long rollout of the August core update, while a search ranking bug is ongoing, so it’s hard to know if sites will continue to improve and what’s causing this movement. Your traffic may continue to improve – but it may also get worse in the coming days.
We don’t know which way this update is going. But we will continue to watch and report back what we find. We hope you all find success and improvements with this Google algorithm update.