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October 2023 Core Update

Core Update

Updated on:

October 19, 2023

,

by Momentic

This is Google's third core algorithm update of 2023 (the first one was in March, the second one was in August).

Current status of the ranking update

  • Status:

    Rollout complete!

    Rollout in progress!

  • Announced by Google:

    October 5, 2023

  • Update started:

    October 5, 2023

  • Update completed:

    October 19, 2023

    Rollout in progress!

Momentic analysis and first look

Below you'll get tips on what to look for, how to respond on your website, and helpful resources to improve your website's SEO and UX as it relates specifically to this Google update.

Types of websites affected

All websites

What to look for

  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)

What to address

  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.

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