Some Google Helpful Content Update Resurrections With August Core Update

Aug 19, 2024 - 7:51 am 523 — by
Filed Under Google Updates

Google Bandage

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:

He also shared his thoughts on YMYL sites impacted and the ranking bug:

Lily Ray also posted:

Marie Haynes as well:

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."

But again, the signs of life does not mean the sites are at 100% oxygen levels:

Here is Gisele Navarro from House Fresh:

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:

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.

 

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