How To Recover Your Website From May 2022 Broad Core Update?

Jul 15, 2022

Google’s core formula update that began rolling out on May 25 was officially completed on June 9. And just like any other Google update, it can have an evident impact on site owners.

Some websites experience a significant drop in their traffic, while others may discover positive modifications. If your website has negative implications with the May 2022 broad core update, there are steps you can take to fix the situation and manage the rank volatility.

In this post, we are going to share a few tips on diagnosing and fixing your site issues after a Google core update. But before diving into the recovery checklist, it is important to understand what a Google core update is and why it matters.

So, let’s begin with the basics.

What is a Google Core Update?

A core update is a substantial change made by Google to its ranking algorithm and systems to improve the quality and relevance of its search engine results.

You might have heard about Pegion Penguin, Panda, Pigeon and Hummingbird algorithm updates implemented to address a specific component. For instance, Penguin was introduced to address link spam, whereas Panda updates focused on thin content.

All these algorithm updates have a specific purpose.

However, the broad core updates provide an overall tweaking of the algorithm, impacting various ranking factors across the board. Instead of targeting a single issue, broad core updates modify the ranking mechanism and criteria through which the search engine algorithm determines the value of a web page in a more wide-ranging way.

As broad core update changes how Google’s system produces search results, they can cause massive spikes in ranking volatility. However, take account of the fact that a drop in rankings doesn’t mean your web pages are being penalized, but they are being reassessed against other indexed web pages that have been published since the last core update.

What to Do if a Google Core Update Negatively Impacts Your Website ?

Assess Your Website

The first thing to do when a core update impacts your website ranking is to analyze and evaluate your web pages critically. Check which queries and pages experienced a dip in the traffic and visibility. You may find this information by examining the traffic and impressions of each page and queries available on Google Search Console.

Review the queries and pages to see whether there is any common pattern to what might be the cause. However, do note that it won’t be enough to gather and assess your site’s analytics reports. What you need to do is take a look at your direct search competitors. How did they react to the May core update? Is there any specific strategy to consider? Having a better understanding of your competitor’s strategy would help you detect the weaknesses and strengths of your online presence.

Once you have found the pattern or the issues with your web pages, make sure to fix and optimize the content to stay relevant and improve your web presence.

Identify and Address Technical Issues

If Google can’t crawl or index your web pages, it won’t appear in the search results. Conducting a comprehensive audit helps detect any technical issues with your website that might be preventing Google bots and spiders from crawling and indexing your website efficiently.

Run your web pages through an SEO audit tool to review a varied range of factors such as website architecture, navigational pattern, broken links, 404 errors, canonical issues and more. Analyzing what’s working, what needs improvement and what critical fixes are necessary is essential to assess and improve your website’s technical health.

Consider making improvements to your page loading times, on-page factors, link structure, SSL, XML sitemaps and other core web vitals.

You can easily find a number of free and paid SEO tools which you can use to perform the technical audit after the May 2022 broad core update. You may also consider hiring an SEO agency to conduct a complete technical audit of your website.

Identify Content that Needs Improvement

Use SEO tools to identify the web pages and posts that have been adversely affected by the May 2022 broad core update. You may use Googles Search Console and Google Analytics to find the web pages that have suffered from a sharp decline in traffic and impressions.

Compile the list of pages and conduct a quality and relevance check. Google has often made it clear that it uses content ‘relevance’ and ‘freshness’ to determine its quality and value. So, look closely at your underperforming and check whether they contain inaccurate or out-of-date information.

Ensure the content you have published on your web pages covers topics in depth, fulfilling the search intent and is written with humans in mind. In addition to fixing the existing content, you also have an option to publish new content on your website to offset your traffic loss.

Create and post new pages with high-quality and trustworthy content to generate new organic traffic to make up for the hits you’ve lost.

Making your website recover from the effects of Google’s broad core updates demands consistent efforts and resources. It is wise to seek advice on core algorithm updates and the professional expertise of a reputed SEO agency like Aiwa Digital to manage the online visibility of your website. If you have queries, get in touch with our team, and we will be glad to help you.