{"id":853,"date":"2019-10-12T11:46:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-12T11:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/?p=853"},"modified":"2022-10-21T12:37:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T12:37:26","slug":"the-september-2019-google-core-update-case-studies-health-and-medical-volatility-discover-impact-baby-algorithms-and-revisiting-the-kitchen-sink-appro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenfintech.com\/blog\/the-september-2019-google-core-update-case-studies-health-and-medical-volatility-discover-impact-baby-algorithms-and-revisiting-the-kitchen-sink-appro\/","title":{"rendered":"The September 2019 Google Core Update \u2013 Case studies, health and medical volatility, Discover impact, \u201cbaby algorithms\u201d, and revisiting the \u201ckitchen sink\u201d approach to remediation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"september-2019-core-update\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Google typically pushes broad core ranking updates only a few times per year, and on September 24, 2019, they pushed yet another. Google\u2019s Danny Sullivan pre-announced the update on Twitter and explained like previous core updates, it would be a global update and could take several days to fully roll out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it was quiet initially, we began to see impact a full day or two into the rollout, with some sites surging and others dropping across categories and countries. That shouldn\u2019t shock anyone who follows core updates closely\u2026 I often explain that they can make the earth shake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this post, I\u2019ll explain some interesting case studies I\u2019ve worked on, including sites that increased and other sites that dropped. These are sites that I\u2019ve helped after they reached out to me about negative impact during core updates, so I have a lot of knowledge about the sites overall, their history during previous core updates, the types of problems each site had across categories, how they chose to tackle those problems, the speed at which those changes rolled out, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the cases of surges and drops, I\u2019ll also cover the volatile health and medical niche (including alternative health), the impact to the ever-growing Discover feed, how technical problems could cause quality problems, and I\u2019ll underscore the importance of employing a \u201ckitchen sink\u201d approach to remediation (where it\u2019s important to surface ALL potential problems and fix them as quickly as you can).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll explain why that makes a lot of sense given how Google\u2019s core ranking algorithm works, which was reinforced by Google\u2019s Gary Illyes at Pubcon last Thursday (when he brought up millions of \u201cbaby algorithms\u201d working together).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Definitely grab a cup of coffee, or two, we\u2019ve got a lot to cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google\u2019s Core Ranking Algorithm \u2013 Millions of \u201cbaby algorithms\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Google\u2019s core ranking algorithm is an interesting animal. Google has always explained that it\u2019s taking many factors into account when evaluating sites. Gary Illyes just explained at Pubcon that Google\u2019s core ranking algorithm is made up of millions of \u201cbaby algorithms\u201d that work together to spit out a score. That makes complete sense given what I\u2019ve seen in the field when helping companies that have been impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve often said there\u2019s never one smoking gun\u2026 Instead, there\u2019s usually a number of things that can be improved across a site, from content quality to user experience to aggressive and disruptive ads to technical SEO problems causing quality problems, and more. And beyond that, Google can tinker with many algorithms, which can obviously cause some sites to surge or drop without any changes being implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yep, welcome to the wonderful world of core updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My advice has always been to thoroughly analyze your site through the lens of quality, which can mean several things. Don\u2019t just cherry pick a few things to improve. Instead, improve the site overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s also why running a user study is a great idea, and can be incredibly powerful. You can receive objective feedback about your site content, user experience, advertising situation, learn how much people trust your site, understand if they believe you are an expert in your niche, and more. You can read my post about running user studies through the lens of core updates to review some of the feedback we received for a health\/medical client. Some of that feedback was eye-opening for my client.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google\u2019s Algorithms Have Become More Critical Of Health And Medical Sites (and the adjustments keep coming\u2026)<\/strong>
I\u2019ve covered the health and medical niche a lot in my previous posts about core updates (especially since the Medic update in August of 2018). Since Medic, the health and medical niche has seen extreme volatility. There were many sites in that category seeing massive fluctuations in rankings. Some were dropping by over 80% while others surged like crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, check out the crazy swings in search visibility below for several sites in the health\/medical niche:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"september-2019-core-update-health-medical-c\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Health and medical site dropping and surging during core updates.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"september-2019-core-update-health-medical-a\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Another health and medical site surging and dropping during core updates.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"september-2019-core-update-health-medical-b\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Yet another example of crazy volatility with a health and medical site during core updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With each subsequent core update, many sites in the health and medical niche experienced major turbulence, with some sites surging with one update, only to drop with the next. And that\u2019s even for sites that were implementing a lot changes to improve overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t until May of 2019 that we specifically heard about the niche from Google\u2019s John Mueller. He explained that Google\u2019s algorithms have gotten more critical for health and medical sites over the past year or so. And, Google has gotten much better at determining quality in the health and medical niche. I\u2019m really glad John explained that, since again, we had seen crazy volatility in the category leading up to that statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is John\u2019s comment from the webmaster video hangout:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd then of course there are other kinds of websites where I\u2019d say maybe our algorithms in the last year or so have been focusing more on and where they\u2019re a bit more critical. For example, one area that I\u2019ve seen mentioned a lot is the whole medical space. Where I see people posting online talking about authority, expertise, \u2026 those kinds of things where I\u2019d say that definitely makes sense. Where in the past it was really hard for us to judge kind of the quality of the medical or medically-oriented site. And over time our algorithms have gotten better in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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