As you know, Google released the August 2024 core update on Thursday and then shortly after confirmed a ranking bug impacting a large number of search results (which is still not fixed as of the time of this story). During that time, we have seen many reports from SEOs and site owners that they are starting to see early signs of possible recoveries (well, not complete recoveries but signs of life with small increases in rankings) for sites hit by the infamous September 2023 helpful content update.
Article Key Points:
- Signs Of Life: While we are not seeing full recoveries, we are seeing the first signs of life for sites that were hit hard from the September update and saw no improvements until now.
- Retro Dodo and House Fresh both confirmed seeing improvements for the first time.
- Not all are seeing improvements, many sites are still dead in the water (or the SERPs) and seeing seeing even more declines
- Google's confirmed ranking bug is not fixed yet.
- Rich result image thumbnails are showing up for some of those who lost them.
As a reminder, we have seen no site recover from that helpful content update until now. But Google has said they are working on surfacing more helpful content. Google said sites can recover from the helpful content update with this next core update.
Just a technical reminder that the helpful content update is no more.
Again, the first time since the September helpful content touched down, we are finally seeing some sites see some signs of recovery. That is not to say that all sites hit by that update are seeing recoveries, it seems most are not. Plus, some sites hit by previous core updates are seeing recoveries from that, while others are being hit the first time. Also, as we covered earlier, thumbnails for rich results are returning for many publishers, so that is a sign that the new core update is making a difference for some publishers.
Glenn Gabe has been tracking a few hundred sites that saw huge declines with the September 2023 helpful content update and since Friday he has been noticing that some of them, not all of them, for the first time, are seeing positive ranking swings. "There are about 30-35 in my list of 380+ that have surged with this core update so far. It's still early, and there is a ranking bug out there... but good to see these sites surging after dropping heavily since the Sep HCU(X)," Glenn wrote. Glenn this morning said now 47 of these sites are seeing some movement.
Here are some of the posts from Friday through the weekend:
More about HCU(X) sites and recovery. Here are two examples of rankings improving across queries for two sites that got hammered by the September HCU(X). Both are seeing big ranking increases across queries. These sites are in different verticals and have been down heavily since… pic.twitter.com/5a5U3PoBIf
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 16, 2024
Beyond HCU(X) sites, here are some examples of surges and drops I am seeing across verticals. From news sites to media sites to reference sites, I'm seeing a number of surges and drops already. Also, I was interested to see if Google would correct some of the forum surges based… pic.twitter.com/prXNbmjKB6
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 17, 2024
Good Morning Google Land! This is the August 18th edition of "Core Update Notes". There are three parts to today's thread. First, continued surges for some HCU(X) sites. There are about 30-35 in my list of 380+ that have surged with this core update so far. It's still early, and… pic.twitter.com/53QpAHgTK4
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 18, 2024
Good Morning Google Land! This is the Aug 19th edition of "Core Update Notes". First, I'm now seeing more HCU(X) sites surge. Out of the 380+ sites I'm tracking, 47 have surged since the August core update began rolling out. Note, some have low visibility, but they have spiked… pic.twitter.com/ZX1UwjNEZ7
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 19, 2024
He also shared his thoughts on YMYL sites impacted and the ranking bug:
Good Morning Google Land! This is the August 18th edition of "Core Update Notes". There are three parts to today's thread. First, continued surges for some HCU(X) sites. There are about 30-35 in my list of 380+ that have surged with this core update so far. It's still early, and… pic.twitter.com/53QpAHgTK4
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 18, 2024
Lily Ray also posted:
Here's an HCU-impacted site surging +590% where it was two days ago.
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 16, 2024
It's still nothing compared to what they lost in the Helpful Content Update, but that's how core update recoveries work. They take weeks. It's been 24 hours. pic.twitter.com/oucv2VeMDe
I've been wondering for a long time when we would finally see a chart like this.
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 17, 2024
If this growth trend continues in the days/weeks to come, it means we finally, officially have September 2023 Helpful Content Update recoveries happening. Like the one below.
For reference, this… pic.twitter.com/QxZLlV5wD9
And just to be clear, many HCU-affected sites appear to be down even more in the past 2 days.
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 17, 2024
I hope it's very clear that just because some sites can/will recover, not all will.
This one is down another -25% since the core update started two days ago. Spending even 5 seconds… pic.twitter.com/Voh98pyUmG
Another pic.twitter.com/HDJTZpw2sc
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) August 18, 2024
Marie Haynes as well:
Starting to see some improvements.
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) August 18, 2024
The vast majority of sites I monitor have no change. A few are down.
It's early and the update will take a month to roll out, so hang in there!
The first 3 pictured were impacted by HCU. They are not sites that were publicly discussed. pic.twitter.com/iB9xmSOsqU
Brandon Saltalamacchia, from Retro Dodo, who had that sit down with Danny Sullivan - his site was hit hard by the helpful content update, also said he is "seeing lots of fluctuations."
I can confirm that I am seeing lots of fluctuations. I'm not sure what this means yet, but my fingers are crossed. Reddit is still dominating absolutely everything.
— Brandon Saltalamacchia (@iambrandonsalt) August 16, 2024
But again, the signs of life does not mean the sites are at 100% oxygen levels:
I'm all for it, and hope it continues but if we truthfully zoom out, it's still an absolute catastrophe still.
— Brandon Saltalamacchia (@iambrandonsalt) August 19, 2024
"Retro Dodo's traffic returns"
Absolutely not, we're still in the trenches and will be for a long time. The damage is done and the work continues. pic.twitter.com/WO74nRgmhW
Here is Gisele Navarro from House Fresh:
Hey! Sorry, this update caught me while on vacation 😅
— Gisele Navarro (@ichbinGisele) August 17, 2024
We are receiving visitors to some of our former top traffic pages. Here you can see yesterday VS 28 days ago: pic.twitter.com/38PBMTZYnR
🫶 thank you, Aleyda! We checked this morning and other unfairly targeted small sites in our space are also seeing traffic growth 🙌
— Gisele Navarro (@ichbinGisele) August 19, 2024
Then some folks at in the WebmasterWorld:
traffic is slightly up. Maybe 5/10%. I can't lie. And yet, I can't say I feel anything at all.
Update: as of now, many of our keyword positions have had significant recoveries, with many articles getting back onto the first page. But these seem to be mostly for informational queries and queries that don't have commercial intent. It has not translated into a noticeable increase in traffic either. At least it's a start.
We're seeing positive growth after core update.......But don't know whether it's impact of core update or ranking issue in Google search
I did have a nice bump on my HCU affected site, but it appears that in the last few days, it has reversed. Could be related to the current search bug (I doubt it) but I was wanting to hold off on celebrating either way.
So far, some of my articles recovered a bit, some didn't (yet). (It seems random to me which articles gained rankings and which didn't.) My product listings also gained a few ranks, but I'm getting still outranked by sites from outside Europe.Traffic is still weird, but I guess I'll take it and hopefully it's not temporary.
Skyrocketing traffic today from 9am onward. Search is +34% and direct traffic is +37%. Every part of the world higher. Typically when this happens it crashes again within 12-18 hours or so...let's see.
My articles have recovered somewhat (not all of them) but traffic is still down.
Google Analytics show my site have more than 700 visitors, search console show 350 visitors, analytics showing 5-10 new users each 15 minutes arrive don't know whats going trouble is everywhere....
But not all sites are seeing positive changes, like with any update, some sites go up and with that, other sites go down:
One of my sites up 70%, my main money site down 50%, in 2 days. Shocking.
NO EFFECTS ON HCU SITE.I'm seeing good effects on Core Update affected sites from 2023.
One of our sites looks like this. I think it's about the indexing/displaying bug. But it's loud.. it affects advertising revenue, it affects contracts with clients per impressions. Google has a great responsibility and should be more rational when making such moves. You can't afford to say today that a site has 5000 organic visitors daily and tomorrow it will have 250. It's outrageous!
As far as the rankings, insofar as I care, it's a mixed bag. I have some pages coming to the top of the 2nd page from 3rd page but some other pages have dropped badly.
No recovery for my site 😭I was getting 450 sessions per day pre September HCU (small niche but was growing weekly) and making some money, but dropped to 50 sessions per day, starting climbing the last two weeks to roughly 120 per day..
last night at 11pm had 30 people online (happy days) most I've had, so was booking flights & browsing for a new home..
Midnight onwards looks like I'm getting 2 visitors per hour, so I'm guessing today's traffic will be around 30 sessions..
Time to give up I think, I'll wait for the update to finish & if no improvement, I'll likely sell the site as it has some great back links from .gov & .uni sites all natural.
Anyone experiencing a drop since the update started? Our traffic has nosedived by 90%, although I am hoping it is because of the Search ranking issue.
Disaster. No HCU recovery.
Our traffic is down. Everything was going good the day core update rolled out but since the following day it seems a disaster. Not sure if it is due to the ranking bug.
While I'm genuinely happy for everyone who is seeing a recovery (I really am), we're getting no love over here (in fact, we're losing the little traffic we have left). I feel like the loser in gym class watching everyone else get picked to play dodgeball just wishing once it could be our turn.I know we're only a few days into what may be a month-long update, but if this trend continues, it feels like it may be the official end for us.
I also asked on X about this, so feel free to click through to this to read the responses:
What are you all seeing with this Google August core update? https://t.co/Vwtc8UgUF4
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) August 18, 2024
Seeing a lot of blogging recoveries in the recipe niche so far.
— Casey Markee (@MediaWyse) August 18, 2024
Also, thumbnails are returning to hundreds of bloggers who have been without them for over 9 months! pic.twitter.com/HLfUWVl24r
🤯 We can already see the start of major shifts by Google's Core August Update, many of them sites that had been negatively/positively affected by last year's updates, including reversals! Check your rankings, but remember that Google has mentioned how the update release will… pic.twitter.com/178oSgzolB
— Aleyda Solis 🕊️ (@aleyda) August 18, 2024
My second biggest site. I de monetized this one. It’s the only blip I’m seeing so far. We’ve got a long way to go before this is meaningful. pic.twitter.com/pvmtg8SgM4
— Morgan Overholt | $600k Upworker (@MorganOMedia) August 18, 2024
Nothing meaningful has changed. Traffic is down about 10%. Every large publisher that uses my content, attributes it, and links back to me ranks in Top Stories, News, and other areas, but I don't.
— Mayank Parmar (@mayank_jee) August 18, 2024
It's just insane. I've shared thousands of examples, yet nothing has changed. The…
This is how it looks overall. Probably, going to reach 0 at some point. pic.twitter.com/xU8d1qtYve
— Kevin | Virtual Assistant (@kevinrod81) August 18, 2024
There are almost a 100 responses, I can post them all, but scan through them here.
It is still very early to tell how this August core update will come out. Google did say it will take a month to fully roll out. Plus, we didn't expect to have a ranking bug touch down the same time Google released this core update.
Of course, I will keep track of what the community is saying around this update and keep you all posted here.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Update: August 20 at 8:10 am ET - Google fixed the search ranking bug.
