Google August 2023 Core Update Is Live - Here Is What We Are Seeing Early On

Google August Core Update

Google Search has started to roll out the second broad core update of the 2023 year, and this one is named the August 2023 broad core update. It started on August 22, 2023, at about 1:30 pm ET and as you know, can take about two weeks to roll out. I will add, this update has not yet been seen as a big update but it has only been about 12 hours since it launched.

Google wrote it, "Released the August 2023 core update. The rollout may take up to 2 weeks to complete." Here is the tweet with the announcement:

Today we released the August 2023 core update. We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://t.co/sQ5COfdNcb
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) August 22, 2023

We had an unconfirmed update this weekend where SEOs saw some big swings. Who knows, maybe that was some early testing, but I assume Google would say it is unrelated if I asked the company. We report about a lot of unconfirmed Google search ranking updates here.

So far, the update has not made too much movement in the rankings from what I am tracking. There was a lot of chatter with the unconfirmed update but so far, I am seeing not much in the form of new chatter in the past 12-hours or so. Plus the tracking tools are not showing big changes today, compared to yesterday.

We will keep an eye on this update over the coming days and keep you updated on what the SEO community is noticing. But so far, it seems to have started slowly.

Please remember that these updates can take about two weeks to roll out, and sometimes, the changes you see within the first few days are not where things stick. So be patient and wait for the roll-out to complete before panicking.

Google August 2023 Core Update

Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:

Name: Google August 2023 Broad Core Update
Launched: August 22, 2023 at around 1:30 pm ET
Rollout: It will take about one to two weeks to roll out
Targets: It looks at all types of content
Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards great web pages
Global: This is a global update impacting all regions, in all languages.
Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update but so far, this seems to be a typical core update that reaches wide and the impact is fast.
Discover: Core updates impact Google Discover and other features, also feature snippets and more.
Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google's core update advice.
Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. Maybe this is what we saw the past couple of weeks or all those unconfirmed Google updates.

Previous Broad Core Updates

Here is a list of the most recent core updates we've seen since Google started to confirm them. Previously we nicknamed them Phantom updates or unconfirmed updates.

March 2023 Core Update: March 15, 2023 through March 28, 2023
September 2022 Core Update: September 12, 2022 through September 26, 2022
May 2022 Core Update: May 25, 2022 through June 9, 2022
November 2021 Core Update: November 17, 2021 through November 30, 2021
July 2021 Core Update: July 1, 2021 through July 12, 2021
June 2021 Core Update: June 2, 2021 through June 12, 2021
December 2020 Core Update: December 3, 2020 through December 16, 2020
May 2020 Core Update: May 4, 2020 through May 18, 2020
January 2020 Core Update: January 13, 2020 through mostly January 17, 2020
September 2019 Core Update: September 24, 2019
Google June 2019 Core Update: June 3, 2019 through June 8, 2019

SEO Chatter On August 2023 Core Update

Here is some of the chatter around this Google update on Twitter, BlackHatWorld and Webmaster World - there is also a ton of comments here on our site:

Pretty Sure the core update was rolling out from a week now.

My global site seeningly has increased traffic from UK time 15.00 this afternoon, say 6 hours ago ... we'll see what transpires.

It is not an update it is moving the cheese we all need to stay calm…

Definitely some movements today

This update had stated few days back, I was about to make a thread update is live but since I didn’t see many people say about it I thought I was wrong. Currently massive traffic fluctuations seen but others could have a different opinion so do share what’s happening

Suddenly 90% of my new product pages are not indexed either, but a month ago almost 90% were indexed.

Hmm... No movements but no traffic. Sound familiar?

Yeah, was about to post this too.
Like the past few core updates, we can see immediate results right after the annoucement.
This time round it's already past 12 hours since its announcement but there hardly seems any movement.

The ranking has not seen a large fluctuation, you may need to wait a few more days

Nothing yet...
— Donna Rougeau (@donnathecoach) August 23, 2023

no
— Sheikh (@sheikhchille) August 23, 2023

No
— dsvarma (@dsvarma19) August 23, 2023

no
— Sheikh (@sheikhchille) August 23, 2023

no, quite spucky, feels like a ghost train right now
— Enqome (@enqome) August 23, 2023

Typically from midnight to 9 or 10 a.m., I notice some traffic, but today I've hardly seen any—like, really none at all.
— Abdelkader (@Abdel_kader8) August 23, 2023

Nothing really serious for now.
— Bolarinwa Olajire (@dejiolajire) August 23, 2023

Not yet
— Pradeep (@pradeepse0) August 23, 2023

I anyone does, they have superpowers
— Pedro Dias (@pedrodias) August 23, 2023

It's here as predicted by many.

Friendly reminder to be obsessed with humans and what bots think about what humans want.

Be proactive in understanding and influencing human behavior.

Feeding an algorithm what you think it wants makes you reactive. https://t.co/c6tbltPkjA
— Victor Pan 🇹🇼🇺🇲 (@victorpan) August 22, 2023

FINALLY! Google has released a new core update. https://t.co/6HlaSgBxXO
— Dr. Marie Haynes🌱 (@Marie_Haynes) August 22, 2023

The update is finally here! Watch your rankings 👀 https://t.co/hU7KsBQuMk
— Aleyda Solis 🇺🇦 (@aleyda) August 22, 2023

As if the last couple months weren't already chaotic!
💣💥 🫣 https://t.co/PYiv9do7oK
— Kim Doughty (@howdydoughty) August 22, 2023

Here we go! The second one of 2023, just five months since the last update. With so much volatility and everything happening (and some controversy) in the SERPs, it will be interesting to see what this update does! https://t.co/qB6tolJ1L7
— Vlad Rappoport (@vladrpt) August 22, 2023

So there it is 🙂 Good luck everyone! https://t.co/Tf4590LANu
— Olga Zarr SEO (@olgazarr) August 22, 2023

I guess the "Volatility Trackers" had to be right sooner or later🤣 https://t.co/YwK7z8g1MC
— Peter Mindenhall (@PeterMindenhall) August 22, 2023

It’s alive! It’s alive! https://t.co/UDF4IAfXhX pic.twitter.com/G9DbpJeXrO
— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) August 22, 2023

To all the SEO’s trying to have a summer holiday lolz https://t.co/c5IvlA6haM
— Tom J 🍀 (@WolfofBaldSt) August 22, 2023

Here we go! We've been waiting for this one for a while. Stay tuned. :) https://t.co/pZqtTCFug8
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 22, 2023

Hold onto your hats...Have a feeling with all the volatility leading up, this could be rough. https://t.co/8msXwPQyFd
— Quentin Aisbett (@QuentinAisbett) August 22, 2023