On Monday, 3rd June 2019, around 1:30 AM, Google announced its forthcoming update named “June 2019 Core Update” on Twitter.
Google declared in its tweet that the update was about to launch the next day. But responses from SEO experts and marketers were different. As soon as the announcement took place on Twitter, people noticed changes on their website rankings, even before the update gone live.
Complaints of sudden dropped rankings, and zero site visits were already floating on Webmaster World.
“Is anyone seeing any issues with google analytics? I’ve had zero traffic for the past hour and both of my plugins lost their authentication. I put in the tracking code into the header of the sites, but nothing. Test traffic on GA doesn’t work and I just tried a VPN, which also isn’t showing up on real-time reports.”
“I’m seeing 0 real time users for the first time in my life, either there’s a problem with Google analytics or they just rolled out the update and my site has been burned”
SEO community posted these responses before the announcement of Update.
With the discussion going on, many started to believe that the update is already live and Google announced it late.
SEO people asked Google whether the update has already started its process as they are noticing changes since June 1, 2019.
Here’s what Eric Mitz tweeted as a response to update announcement:
To clarify confusions of the SEO community, Google posted another tweet saying that the update is not live yet, on the same day around 10:08 PM and they will notify users through tweets when the process begins.
After half an hour of the above tweet, Google posted another tweet declaring the update gone live and started rolling out to other data centers.
By the end of the week, the update will settle down with its final impact on various sites.
After the launch of the update, SEO experts and marketers have noticed drastic changes in their search engine rankings. However, we found the mix results of the update. Some webmasters reported major positive changes of the update as if finally rewarded for their content and SEO efforts, while some noticed serious negative impact as if punished for not taking care of early Google’s warnings.
Here are some mix results of update from the SEO community, posted on WebmasterWorld
“30% traffic drop, some keywords have slipped to the second page from first, second or third position.”
“70% boost in desktop organic traffic but mobile still the same as it was before the update began.”
“I still observe the 25% traffic increase I mentioned yesterday”
“Rankings starting to drop… At this point i’m pretty sure people at Google have no idea what they are doing. They’re like “hey, let’s tell people we are doing a major core update, but what we’ll really do is shift a bunch of websites up and down the SERPs… then on the next update we’ll revert some of the changes and see what happens…”
“I noticed an increase in traffic almost instantly after the update, which continued until around 8am BST, but back down since then. Hoping the early increases will return and it’s just a case of Google rolling it our across all servers…”
Reports from Data Providers
Sistrix, RankRanger, SearchMetrics, and Moz presented data on changes taking places across the SEO world after the launch of Update.
Sistrix wrote a blog post sharing the data of Visibility Index of the Toolbox. It outlines the sudden increase in the visibility of Google’s UK Index.
Changes noted between 05.06 and 06.06.2019
Sistrix also published the list of Top Winners and Losers (as a result of update changes)
Winners of June 2019 Core Update
Losers of June 2019 Core Update
According to Steve Paine from Sistrix, it’s a broad core update as Google first-time pre-announced the update. He reflected on affected fields of domains are wider in this update as compared to the previous ones. He warns to expect more changes as the week goes on, till the update finish its work.
RankRanger posted a record stating US search results and rank fluctuations increase as per niche, on Twitter.
Mordy Oberstein of RankRanger said, “The gambling niche was hit hard as were the health and finance niches (though the update was/is impactful across the broad).”
Marcus Tober, from SearchMetrics, observed the update as the reverse of core update from March. He remarked that medical space like webmd.com or verywellhealth.com who lost their rankings in March update, gained it back during June 2019 Core update.
Health sector may expect a positive impact of this update. But SEO experts are warning not to expect much till the update finish its process.
Barry Schwarz of SearchEngineLand asked the SEO community, on Twitter, about the changes taking place in their website rankings. Here are some of their noticeable responses:
Seems like some are proud of Google’s June 2019 core update while others are trying to find the way to recover from impacts.
Barry noticed on an average 30% change in traffic based on responses received from the SEO community on Twitter.
Is it Big?
Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed that it is a big, noticeable update, through its tweet:
Should You Be Worried?
Google confirms that update is not done rolling out yet and will take time to reveal final changes. Based on mix responses from various SEO communities, we can say that it is big as confirmed by Steve Pained from Sistrix and Google’s Danny Sullivan. But before you take any action, let the dust settle down as some have noticed changes which again got back to normal. It’s obvious, some tests are going on with the update.
Till that time, keep the watch on changes taking place in your site. Record major changes while keeping minor changes aside. Once the data confirms we will inform you about the final impact of update, niches got hit, and necessary actions to be taken. Stay tuned.
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https://www.sistrix.com/blog/google-core-update-more-content-and-news-sites-affected/
https://twitter.com/RankRanger/status/1136257664353275904
