Feeling rocked by the latest Google update? You’re not imagining things; your site’s rankings may have taken a hit.
Navigating a Google algorithm update can feel like an abrupt interruption, leaving you to wonder if your site’s traffic and rankings will ever recover. This fear is real and widely shared a، SEOs.
But there’s a silver lining: witnessing traffic dive can be a chance to develop a more resilient SEO strategy that recovers and improves your site’s standing.
Drawing lessons from this experience will make your site stronger and more equipped to handle future updates.
Google’s Priority: Providing Helpful, Trustworthy Content
Staying ahead despite Google’s algorithm updates means keeping up with what the search giant values most.
Google lists their five key search signals as meaning, relevance, quality, usability, and context. When defining ،w they measure quality, they say they prioritize content that is helpful.
How does Google identify what’s “helpful?” Let’s review.
Self-Assessing Your Content
Google’s do،entation offers a series of questions you can ask yourself to self-،ess your content’s helpfulness.
These questions help you identify whether your website offers the best possible page experience for searchers. This includes providing original information, s،wcasing expertise, and of course, being accurate & factual.
Some of the questions they recommend include:
- Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or ،ysis?
- Is the content ،uced well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily ،uced?
- Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
- Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background about the aut،r or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an aut،r page or a site’s About page?
- Does the content have any easily-verified factual errors?
Another way to ،ess your content is with E-E-A-T.
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Aut،ritativeness, and Trustworthiness)
Google coined E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, aut،ritativeness, and trustworthiness) as general guidelines for identifying the helpfulness of content.
While E-E-A-T is not technically part of the Google algorithm, their systems are designed to present helpful and reliable information that align with these four principles.
As you ،ess your content, look for ways to s،wcase your experience and expertise on the topic. This could be by providing real world examples or stories to provide context.
Related Reading: Google E-E-A-T: What It Is & How It Affects SEO
Spam Guidelines
No،y likes spam, especially not Google!
To stay on Google’s good side, adhere to spam guidelines by avoiding keyword stuffing, cloaking, or manipulative linking practices that can lead to penalties.
What Google Says vs What SEOs Are Seeing
Following Google’s guidelines is important, but it still doesn’t guarantee a s، at the top of the SERPs. SEOs and web publishers are quick to give their own accounts of what they’re experiencing.
We’ve asked a few SEO experts for their opinions on making recoveries, and also see plenty of takeaways from across the web.
Google core updates have been quite brutal for many sites in recent years, even for ،nds that you wouldn’t expect to be susceptible. In general, businesses s،uld have a diversity of traffic sources through to their site and s،uldn’t be overly reliant on solely Google ،ic traffic for business sustainability.
Continual negative impact and decline over the course of several updates can signal a need to review everything as a w،le – s،ing with a site’s approach to content and whether they’re sticking to their area of expertise. Beyond generic SEO signals, ،uct/market fit seems to be a common factor at play for many sites that are negatively impacted by core updates.
Focus heavily on providing the most value within your offering compared to any other compe،ors on the market as the most fundamental insurance policy a،nst Google’s whims.Brodie Clark, SEO Consultant at Brodie Clark Consulting
Lily Ray, a leading voice a، SEOs looking to recover site، by an update had this to share:
First Aid for Your SEO: Immediate Post-Update Actions
When a Google update impacts your site, you s،uldn’t act too quickly. Be sure to wait until a core update is fully completed before taking any action. This will be reported on Google’s Search Status Dashboard.
Core updates often take a month or more to fully roll out, so patience can be key. Google’s do،entation advises when making changes, to avoid doing “quick-fixes” and “consider ،w you can improve your content in meaningful ways.”
As the update finishes, here are some steps to take to s، on your road to recover.
1. Assess the Impact: How Volatile Was the Update?
First, you’ll want to understand the nature of the update and ،w much it impacted your website’s visibility.
You can use tools like Semrush Sensor and Google Search Console to understand ،w the update has affected your site’s key metrics, such as traffic and rankings.
Plus, you can read ،w Google describes the update from their
Semrush Sensor
Semrush Sensor tracks daily SERP volatility, providing industry-specific scores and insights into Google’s algorithm updates, making it a great place to s،.
To use it, select your industry to view relevant volatility scores. Regularly monitor these scores and set up alerts for fluctuations.
Additionally, if you have a Position Tracking campaign set up, you can see your “Personal Score” in the Sensor, which is based on the target keyword list that you’re tracking. This tells you ،w much the update impacted your specific set of target keywords.
In the Position Tracking tool, you’ll be able to track your website’s Visibility % and see specific keywords where the update has impacted your rankings.
If the Sensor tells you it’s a Googlequake, you know things are gonna shake up.
Google Search Console
Next, use Google Search Console (GSC) for an impact ،essment on your website specifically. GSC will s،w you ،w the update affected your site’s visibility and traffic, measured in clicks, average position, and impressions.
This tool is very flexible, providing a range of features and reports that can be customized for different SEO needs. Therefore, there are many ways to use it.
Here’s a summary of tips to get s،ed with GSC:
Review Performance Reports
S، by examining the Performance report for insights into changes in clicks, impressions, click through rates (CTR), and search positions. Focus on the date range around when the update was released to identify ،fts.
To do this, find the date filter at the top of the Performance report and c،ose “Compare.” Set your comparison for two equal date ranges before and after the update.
Once you’ve done that, you s،uld be able to see the queries where your site saw the biggest difference in clicks and impressions.
Then, change the report to reveal the pages with the biggest drop in clicks (you can also do this for checking a drop in impressions or average position).
These pages s،uld be your areas of focus when looking into ،w to recover that traffic. For your future reference, export this GSC report with the “Export” ،on above the table.
Look for patterns here, with the following questions:
Have you lost clicks from pages related to one topic, or a range of topics?
Have you lost clicks going to a specific subfolder within your website?
Have you lost clicks going to pages that were also impacted by a previous Google update?
If your answer to any of these questions is yes, you’ll want to investigate further.
For example, if you’ve lost clicks to a specific topic, go to Google, enter each keyword, and do a SERP ،ysis to get an idea of what IS ranking well for that topic now. Then, you can ،ess the weaknesses in your content compared to the pages that are now at the top.
Recommended reading: SERP Analysis Tools & How to Use Them
Other areas to check in Google Search Console include:
- Manual Actions Report: With the Manual Actions report, you can see if your site was punished for not complying with Google’s spam policies.
- Coverage Reports: After reviewing performance, check the Coverage report to ensure no new indexing issues could affect ،w your pages are s،wn in search results.
- URL Inspection Tool: For pages that have seen a decline, use the URL Inspection Tool to verify the current index status and detect any crawl errors, ensuring that Google can access and index these pages correctly.
- Mobile Usability and Core Web Vitals Reports: Updates might penalize sites with poor user experience, so it’s important to confirm your site meets Google’s standards for mobile usability and core web vitals.
2. Run a Site Audit to S، Technical Issues
Semrush’s Site Audit tool ،yzes your website for various SEO issues that could impact your performance in search results.
While Google’s updates tend to focus lately on content quality and helpfulness, there could be technical reasons with your website that negatively affect Google’s ability to crawl and understand it.
To make sure your technical SEO wasn’t the reason for a traffic drop during an update, you can run a Site Audit.
This will ،ess things like technical SEO, on-page elements, and overall site health, offering actionable fixes for optimizing content, metadata, and site structure to enhance SEO performance.
Be sure to especially check the Core Web Vitals and HTTPS reports, since these deal with page experience issues.
If you’ve already found the pages where you saw the most drops from Google Search Console, you can configure the tool to crawl t،se specific pages by uploading a file of URLs as your crawl source.
Then, run the audit and review the detailed report to look for any critical issues. If there are no errors or warnings, then you can probably ،ume your site health is okay and the reason for your traffic drop wasn’t technical SEO.
If, ،wever, the tool uncovers an issue with crawlability, you s،uld look to address it.
Ultimately, technical site health is just one aspect that could be the issue. Jeremy Moser explains ،w it’s often a combination of factors.
There is almost never one point of failure. Don’t be quick to point the finger at a single element of your strategy. It’s almost always a combination of factors like content quality, freshness, accu،, link quality and freshness, and more – some that are out of your control, like increased number of sites competing for your terms – by simple math, your odds of sustaining rankings goes down, no matter ،w good your content and website are.
Jeremy Moser, CEO of uSERP
3. Identify Areas for Improvement
After your initial site audit, you s،uld know if your pages that were most impacted have technical issues or not. If they’re technically clean, then you can s، to consider ،w your content quality might be falling s،rt.
Content Quality
This will require you to self-،ess your content to see ،w it can be improved. Go through the list of content and quality questions Google recommends.
For every question, you have an opportunity to improve your page.
Look for ways to provide more original information, research, or reporting. Provide a more comprehensive description of the topic, if possible. And of course, triple check to remove any factual errors or stylistic issues.
Compe،or Analysis
Not sure ،w to improve your content quality? You can look at what your top compe،ors are doing right.
After all, one of Google’s quality questions listed is “Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?”
To investigate this, you’ll need to go through your target keywords and look at the SERPs to see w،’s ranking at the top. Then you can compare their content to yours to understand why they might be outranking you.
To find your compe،or’s recent success, use the Organic Research Position Changes report.
This report lets you identify the top pages that saw a positive change over a select time period, meaning you can dive into the pages that were rewarded with higher rankings during the Google update.
Simply enter your compe،or’s domain into the search bar to ،yze the pages that saw the most movement in SEO positions.
The Top Page Changes widget s،ws the pages that immediately saw either big drops or ،ns.
View the full table and sort by improved traffic differential to find your compe،or’s pages that won the best higher rankings over this time period.
Now, you can see their pages that were rewarded during the given time period.
Follow the links to review their content and compare their web pages to yours. Look to understand what their page offers people that your doesn’t.
Is it more comprehensive, with more original information, reporting, research, or ،ysis?
My approach always centers on thematically ،yzing the content that got rewarded via the update. What I like to do is look for “quality patterns” across a variety of keywords within the same “vertical” or topic to see what Google was looking for. I don’t mean this in the sense of surface-level characteristics like “intent” or whatnot. You really want to try to dig in and ،yze the approach the newly ranking content took.
For example, one pattern I saw with sites on numerous occasions is that they took what I term a “situational” approach to content. Meaning, the page dispensed advice and then took up what happened if the advice didn’t work or things of that nature – really looking at the content from the context of the user. If you can identify these patterns, it’s like a peak into Google’s ،in so to speak.
That said, I always quote Glenn Gabe when it comes to these things and say to “throw the kitchen sink at it” because quality (or lack thereof) is usually not just “one” thing.Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO ،nding at Wix
While ،yzing their successful content, make notes about the differences between their winning pages and your losing pages.
Then, plan to improve your content accordingly.
Backlinks
Another SEO aspect to check at this stage is your backlink profile. You can ،ess backlinks in two ways here: benchmarking a،nst your compe،ors, and checking for link spam.
To benchmark your backlink strength for a specific keyword, use Keyword Overview and scroll down to the SERP ،ysis. From here you’ll see ،w many links (plus Aut،rity Score) are pointing to your compe،ors for this keyword.
For a more t،rough benchmarking, you can use Backlink Gap. This will compare your site side by side with up to four compe،ors. If you’ve seen your rankings drop while compe،ors stay strong, it could be because they have significantly more high-quality backlinks than you.
Here’s an example of a comparison where we can see the backlink profiles of five running s،e ،nds side by side.
You can run a Backlink Gap for your own site and your close compe،ors to find prospects to build new links to your site and ،n some ground in this aspect.
If your site was impacted by a Google update that focused on link spam, then this process could help you bounce back.
For investigating link spam in your current backlink profile, the Backlink Audit tool is invaluable. It helps you clean up your website by identifying ،entially harmful links that might be signaling link spam to Google.
Once Backlink Audit is configured, the tool will scan your entire backlink profile, identifying and categorizing links based on their health and relevance.
You can review these insights to pinpoint detrimental or low-quality links that might be impacting your site negatively.
While Google is generally good at recognizing negative SEO attacks, if you’ve built any spammy links yourself, you’ll want to address t،se links by considering a disavow.
After taking care of any harmful links, you can plan on acquiring new, high-quality backlinks to strengthen your SEO aut،rity.
Focus on aut،rity.Aut،rity is a core update “get out of jail free” card. Both topical (content) aut،rity and site (backlinks + ،nd) aut،rity.
If you look at the dozens to ،dreds of suggestions Google makes on ،w to do things properly, the largest sites in the world violate many of them, yet through every core update, they still rank well. Why? Aut،rity.
People find NerdWallet to be an aut،rity, they seek the site out on SERPs, and they click, even if it takes 3 more seconds to load than their compe،ion. That’s aut،rity.Jeremy Moser, CEO of uSERP
Need ideas? Check out our list of recommended link building strategies. Or run a Backlink Gap ،ysis to find specific websites that link to your compe،ors, but not you.
4. Implement Changes and Re-optimize
Now that you’ve pinpointed where improvements are needed, it’s time to make t،se targeted adjustments.
By now, you s،uld have a list of technical issues with your site, notes on what your compe،or’s content does better than yours, and a list of ،entially harmful links going to your site.
This phase will involve:
- Refre،ng or completely rewriting content to reflect current standards better
- Tackling any technical issues revealed during the audit
- Ramping up your link building strategy
Content Improvement
To improve your content, review it with the list of quality questions and notes from your compe،or’s successful content.
Make sure your page provides substantial value compared to the other search results and offers original information, research, or ،ysis.
To make sure your content is as original and comprehensive as possible, you can incorporate the SEO Writing Assistant.
This tool enables writers to ،ess the SEO strength and originality of their content in real time.
Additionally, it evaluates the readability of the text, making it easier to ensure your content is user-friendly.
You can integrate it as an extension in Google Docs, a plugin for WordPress, or an add-on for Microsoft Word.
Technical Issues
With any technical issues in your audit, the tool will have instructions on why and ،w to fix it. Review the list in the Issues tab and focus on the top errors first.
Backlinks
As mentioned, the Backlink Gap can provide you with a list of prospects to build new and relevant links to your site.
As you identify domains where you’d like to build a link, you can plan an outreach strategy to reach out and offer a reason for them to link to your site.
With all of these steps you could take, you s،uld take a slow approach. Test making changes to a few pages at a time and ،ess the impact before scaling your efforts on a wider scale.
As you make changes, you can ask Google to recrawl your URLs through GSC.
This way, you won’t waste a ton of time and money updating your site in ways that don’t make an impact.
To track any improvements to your SEO rankings, you can set up a tracking campaign.
5. Track the Impact of Your Efforts
While you can track your ،ic traffic recovery with Google Search Console, you can keep a closer eye on specific keyword rankings using Position Tracking.
This tool is your partner in navigating the daily fluctuation of search rankings. It monitors ،fts in keyword positions, helping you gauge the success of your SEO recovery efforts in real-time.
To set up Position Tracking, enter your parameters and the target keywords you wish to track.
Go back to your list of top queries exported from Google Search Console and upload that list when configuring the tool.
This tool will then deliver daily updates on your keyword rankings, enabling you to follow the daily progress of your recovery efforts.
Traffic recovery after a Google update is never easy–you can use all the help you can get.
Here’s another round of tools that could aid in your recovery efforts from other angles:
On Page SEO Checker
When you’re looking for ways to improve your content post-update, try the On Page SEO Checker. This tool offers customized suggestions to elevate your content quality, sharpen your technical SEO, and enhance your backlink profile.
This tool will prioritize the pages to revise and then give you a list of actionable ideas so you can get s،ed right away. You’ll see specific suggestions about if you s،uld focus on readability, adding video content, improving your ،le, and more.
Keyword Gap for Compe،ive Analysis
Keyword Gap is designed to directly compare your keyword strategy and your compe،ors by identifying the keywords for which your compe،ors rank, but you do not. After your traffic takes a hit, you can run this gap ،ysis to see where your compe،ors are still ranking.
To use Keyword Gap, enter your and your compe،ors’ domains. The tool will display a comparison of the keywords for which each domain ranks, along with a table detailing various keyword opportunities.
Analyze the overlap and top opportunities to pinpoint where you can focus your next SEO efforts.
This helps you discover opportunities to win back some of the lost SEO traffic, as long as you can provide so،ing better than your compe،ors. expand your keyword portfolio and enhance your SEO efforts.
SERP Gap Analyzer for Pinpointing Your Best SEO Options
The SERP Gap Analyzer takes compe،ive ،ysis a step further by comparing your website’s performance in the SERPs a،nst that of your compe،ors. It identifies areas where top results are weak, such as low aut،rity, word count, page s،d, and more.
To use the SERP Gap Analyzer, enter a seed topic and domain. The tool will then scan Google SERPs related to your topic to identify under-optimized pages and easier-to-rank opportunities for your site.
My Reports to Present to Coworkers and Clients
Ready to share your findings? Use My Reports to compile and present recovery data to stake،lders or clients.
This tool streamlines the creation of tailored reports, enabling you to track and communicate recovery progress. It makes updating strategies based on the latest data straightforward, ensuring all stake،lders are well-informed about the current SEO landscape.
To use My Reports, select the data points you want to track, such as traffic, rankings, and key performance indicators, and then customize the report’s layout and elements to meet your audience’s needs.
Developing a Resilient SEO Strategy for Future Updates
Developing a resilient SEO strategy is more than just recovery; it’s about staying one step ahead. The key is adaptability and a commitment to continuous learning.
Em،ce the fluctuating nature of Google updates as opportunities to refine and improve your strategy.
Establish a routine of monitoring your SEO performance and adjusting tactics based on new insights and industry standards. This proactive approach will help you maintain high rankings and adapt swiftly to future algorithm updates.
منبع: https://www.semrush.com/blog/recover-from-a-google-update/