Google September 2019 Broad Core Update
September 30, 2019 | Category: Digital Marketing, SEO
What is a Broad Core Update?
If you saw my last blog post, you would have seen my quick overview of Google’s algorithm updates. Google tries to ensure that they are always returning the best results, and this takes a lot of work and changes over time. As technology changes, Google is able to take advantage of new tactics for delivering great contact. But they also have to contend with technologies that make it easier for people to game the system. Thus, Google regularly makes algorithm updates.
In 2018, Google made 3200 algorithm updates, some minuscule, and others large. On the 24th, Google made their September Broad Core update. A Broad Core Update means that Google is making several significant changes to the way their algorithm works. This is the second algorithm update that they have announced before rolling it out. It began on the 24th, and the rollout lasted a couple of days, though Google doesn’t often give us much information.
The September Broad Core Update
If you’re wondering what changed…unfortunately, Google doesn’t announce how to “recover” from a broad core update. Rather they have given us a list of best practices to follow to ensure our websites are the best results they can return.
These best practices are not specific to this algorithm update, or any update, but rather are just general best practices that Google expects reputable sites to follow. Yes, even the site of your small, local business.
Although Google doesn’t tell us the changes these algorithm updates bring, we can determine possibilities from looking at the outcomes for certain sites, keywords, or content.
Noted Algorithm Changes
The largest noted changes seem to have to do with links or backlinks. These are links from other websites to your site. For example, if someone links to your website in a blog post, or if you have a Yellow Pages listing that links back to your site.
This interestingly comes on the heels of Google changing the link attributes that it can understand from simply just “nofollow” so that they can understand if someone is being paid to link back to your site, or if a link is left by a user. By doing this, Google can better understand the value of the backlink.
Enacting Correct SEO Tactics
Overall, however, it seems that the September Broad Core Update is just that—broad. It covers a number of different aspects of SEO and black hat SEO marketers (that is, those who break the rules to try and increase their rankings) have seen drops in their rankings since the update.
If you have questions about getting rankings the right way, ask us!