Google updates are a major event for businesses. The primary impact of an update is on your rankings, which means either your ranking soars or it sinks. There is no in-between unless you have been doing everything right since the beginning. As an SEO agency in London, we have had to keep up with every update to help our clients navigate through them. So, here is a rundown of everything that went down in 2022.
How many times does Google update its algorithms?
Google's updates can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride for businesses. If you are in the middle of planning your marketing strategy, it might feel like you have gone off track when a Google update causes things to change. But don't panic!
Google's algorithmic changes are designed to help you get more customers and improve your business. And although it might feel like your business is taking a hit, there's usually an upside.
When Google releases an update, it means that they have updated its algorithm to give better results to users who are searching for your business or service. This can mean that you will be showing up higher in search results, which can be good or bad depending on how you want to rank. And if you have been following Google’s best practices all along, you won’t have to worry at all. Still, to satiate your mind, here’s a rundown of all of Google’s updates throughout 2022.
Page experience update - February 2022
This update was focused on making the mobile experience more user-friendly. But it was not designed to make the mobile versions of existing websites on Google more mobile-friendly or responsive to smaller screens. Instead, it was focused on making the AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) no longer an outcast of sorts.
Before this update, the AMP versions of websites were given a badge and treated as separate entities but after the February update, they have merged into Google’s algorithm just like the mobile versions.
Product reviews update - March 2022
Until this update, there was mostly conjecture about sites with better reviews taking the cherry on the cake. But in this update, Google really rewarded the websites with good reviews. After six days of intense roll out, the search engine giant incentivized good customer ratings and survive with higher rankings, making all the efforts made by businesses all through the years worth it.
Core update - May 2022
Core updates take place two to three times every year. In 2022, the first one happened in May. Google made core changes to its ranking system to improve search results, which took two full weeks to roll out. The core updates affect everything from local search results to global search results, which means if your business hacked your way into the ranking, it would take a hit. But if you have been ethical and organic in your approach, it won’t affect you that much.
Product reviews update - July 2022
This update would be termed more as a refresh rather than an update, so this could be considered a top-up above the March 2022 update. It was just to make the March update more stable.
Helpful content update - August 2022
The Helpful Content Update was supposed to be the biggest one in almost a decade. It was focused on websites that provided its users with more valuable content than its competitors. The rationale was simple - the more high-quality your content was, the better your site would be rewarded by Google in terms of ranking.
Core update - September 2022
Just like the July 2022 update, this was also a refresh on the previous update. So, nothing new happened in this update besides the fact that it supported the May 2022 update.
Product reviews update - September 2022
Another product reviews update. The only difference between this and the July one was that it was focused on rewarding those websites with more product reviews in the English language.
Spam update - October 2022
This update was focused on reducing search spam and making search results more valuable and getting rid of as much spam as possible. The low-quality search results, which are also not relevant to users, were penalized in this update.
Helpful content system update - December 2022
While the September update was pertaining to product reviews in the English language, this December update was to ensure all the languages available on Google were rewarded equally for being relevant to the user.
Link spam update - December 2022
To curb the irrelevancy in search results, Google rolled out this update to ensure that the spammy links were eliminated from the ecosystem and no longer rewarded as a result of any loophole that they may have spotted. The update that took two weeks to roll out has been the last one of 2022 so far and it penalized the unnatural links as part of its anti-spam mission.
As you can
tell, there is a pattern here. Anything that does not show conscious effort and
strategic thinking gets flagged down by Google in every update. As an SEO
agency, our team helps countless businesses establish themselves as credible
points of interaction for their customers using Google best practices. If you
want the same for your business, reach out to us to get started.
