Early last week, Google announced that it was beginning the rollout of its first major core update since January, the creatively-named “May 2020 Core Update.”
(Yeah, we miss the “fun” names too – if we had our way, we’d call this one the “Star Wars Update” – it dropped on May the 4th, after all!)
What’s new?
The update’s only been live for a few days at the time of writing. What’s more, it’s a gradual update – instead of taking effect immediately, it’s being slowly rolled out over the next few weeks.
That being said, Google has alluded to this update as something that may improve previously under-rewarded pages to do better; not that pages that perform less well will be punished.
They assure us that:
“There’s nothing in a core update that targets specific pages or sites. Instead, the changes are about improving how our systems assess content overall.”
How often does Google roll out these kinds of updates?
Historically it seems to be every couple of months. The last one was in January 2020, and prior to that, one was released in September 2019.
What you need to know: content is still king!
While Google hasn’t put out specific guidelines on how to respond to this particular core update, their standing advice for algorithm changes still applies:
Focus on content to protect yourself from rank drops following an algorithm update.
In particular, focus on creating content that:
- Provides useful information
- Answers questions
- Establishes your authority
- Is well-researched and credible
- Offers value to your customers
At iformat, our focus is – and has always been – on creating this type of content.
High-quality, original content that provides value to our clients’ customers forms the basis of each of our SEO strategies.
As such, we don’t expect to see any drops in our clients’ rankings over the next couple of weeks.
In fact, iformat’s clients have never experienced a ranking drop as a result of a Core Update!
What’s iformat doing?
We’re monitoring our metrics extra closely to ensure that this part of your business stays stable.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be keeping a close eye on your stats, making sure that any dips as a result of this algorithm update are detected immediately and fixed.
We’re confident that we’ll all come out the other end of the update in the same or even a better position than before!