November 2023 Core Update

Google published a blog post with a Q&A about Google Search updates on the same day this core update was announced. Here are three insights from it:

"Why another so soon after the October 2023 core update? We have different systems that are considered core to our ranking process; this month's core update involves an improvement to a different core system than last month. However, our guidance about core updates is the same for both."

"We expect an update to our reviews system to start rolling out next week. That will also mark a point when we'll no longer be giving periodic notifications of improvements to our reviews system, because they will be happening at a regular and ongoing pace. We'll be updating our page about the system to reflect this; we'll also update that page if the system evolves in some notable way, such as covering more languages. Those who do reviews should read our guidance and stay focused on that over time."

"We do try to avoid having updates during the late-November to mid-December period when possible. But it's not always possible. If we have updates that can improve Search, that have been developed over the course of several months, we release them when they're ready."

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)

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.
6. Monitor & track changes made to your website.
7. Track the changing relevance (perceived intent) of keywords related to your content.

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