August 2024 Core Update

This is Google's second core algorithm update of 2024 (the first one was in March) and is intended to improve the quality of search results by highlighting content that's genuinely useful to people, rather than content that feels overly "SEO'd".

Google says the August 2024 core update takes into account feedback they've received from creators and "others" over the last few months (since the previous core update). They say their goal is to connect users with "a range of high quality sites" relevant to their searches, and that this is an area they'll continue to address with future updates.

The August 2024 core update will also "better capture improvements" sites have made.

With this update, Google also updated their help page about core updates to provide more in-depth guidance for anyone experiencing changes after an update.

1. Organic traffic trends, especially non-branded (Google Search Console)

2. Ranking flux & search visibility for high intent keywords (Semrush, Ahrefs, or similar)—look for ranking movements (higher or lower) for website content

3. Keep a close eye on your most valuable SERPs—look out for any changes in the content that is being ranked higher or lower than before the update

4. URL indexation trends (Google Search Console)

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1. Check if the speed or E-E-A-T of your URLs could be a cause of traffic drops.

2. Make sure you haven’t deleted any pieces of content which were previously earning a high volume of organic search traffic.

3. Make sure your content that used to get traffic is still indexed.

4. Determine if significant changes have been made to your website structure or semantic HTML.

5. Prune your content to remove (or improve) unhelpful or non-unique pages. Monitor & track changes made to your website.

6. Track the changing relevance (perceived intent) of keywords related to your content.

Sometimes there's nothing you can do about traffic losses after a Core Update.

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