Something that panics webmasters is when they realize the rankings of their web pages have taken a major hit following an update. But professional medical website marketing companies understand that a rankings loss isn’t the end of the world. Google does not necessarily believe that your site is doing anything bad.
Minor Algorithmic Changes Not as In-depth as Broad Core Updates
Algorithmic changes keep happening every now and then, as part of Google’s supposed objective of giving the best user experience with its search results. These changes do cause confusion among webmasters when results get volatile. Web pages that ranked higher end up slipping down the rankings and other pages find renewed rankings that send them higher up. These changes tend to get balanced after the initial update.
But it’s the broad algorithmic updates or updates to the core algorithm that cause the greatest changes. Some websites end up getting penalized and they need to do the required changes and request Google to index their pages again.
Google’s Insight on Core Algorithmic Update Recovery
Google did recently provide some insight on what to do to recover from a core algorithmic update that has adversely affected your website.Before you start your recovery, here are some things you should remember. These points come from Google’s John Mueller himself.
- It’s very important to realize that the pages that experience traffic loss are not those that are penalized. Traffic loss does not equate to a penalty. Mueller also said that the objective of a core update is to make more relevant pages rank better, and drop the rankings of less relevant sites. And if your rankings drop, you don’t need to wait for the next core update for your website to recover. You can improve the content of your site and make the necessary changes to get back. Mueller also stated that such ranking drops aren’t usually about targeting spam, but more about relevance.
- Losing rankings can perhaps give you the same feeling as being penalized. Even then, the two are not the same. The most prominent way to understand this is, when your rankings drop Google does not send you any notice. But when your site is penalized, you get a notice citing the Webmaster Guideline violation, as the example below shows.
(Img URL: https://neilpatel.com/blog/recover-from-any-google-penalty/)
You get to see the notice through the Search Console on Google. Ranking drops from a core update to the algorithm are not the result of the website publisher violating Google’s guidelines.
Core Algorithm Updates Do Keep Changing Constantly
Another important aspect Mueller mentioned was that Google constantly updates its algorithm changes. So what does that mean? You really don’t need to hold on till the next algorithm update to see the results of the improvements you’d have made to your pages following your rankings drop from the previous algorithm change. Since that algorithm keeps updating and is not constant, you can see the results of your improvements faster, as the algorithm gets updated.
Algorithm updates could sometimes produce unintended results, whereby sites Google didn’t intend get affected. So when Google realizes that, it makes modifications to those updates to ensure the desired results are met. Here’s an example of Google explaining it following a core update in 2018.
(Img URL: https://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/exploring-effects-googles-2018-core-algorithm-update.html)
If your rankings have been adversely affected, perhaps unnecessarily, from a core update, you could see the rankings return sooner as Google improves its update.
Keep the Panic Button Away
This clarification by John Mueller can certainly put the fears of webmasters at rest. Next time a core update comes, and you experience what you didn’t want to see – rankings drop, you don’t need to hit the panic button. That’s what advanced and experienced healthcare digital marketing companies would tell you as well.
