The March 2019 Google Core update that touched down on March 12th - we covered it before it was confirmed - is still very raw and fresh. So most of you know, when reading some of the early speculation and advice around this update - you need to be very skeptical. I just wanted to share what people are saying so you have it but be skeptical.
I am seeing people call this a reversal of the Medic update - which Google would probably now rename to the August 2018 Core Update. :) Some are saying this is Penguin or Panda related. Some say this is purely link related. We got EAT and YMYL and some are saying other things. The theories are floating all over the place now.
It will take weeks or so to review this update and see the true impact - heck it did not even fully roll out yet.
WebmasterWorld forums has a lot of speculation around it:
Biggest impact since EAT update. Something is going on with EAT.
I think google made huge adjustments in the medicine sector.
In my opionion this update is a change on EAT in combination with the user search intent. Google was collecting data about the search intent over the last month and now google knows better what the main focus of a website is. For this main keywords some sites see now a improvement. The serps are now more keyword based.
I'm guessing this is another health niche update since I'm seeing no changes at all. I wouldn't even be thinking about an update today if it were not for other people talking about one.
Entertainment niche.Okay, after struggling all the way up to position 8 on my short tail I’ve now been dropped down to position 31 and Google has selected a completely random and not very relevant subpage with hardly any backlinks at all.
Traffic on several sites that were abused by Penquin have rebounded significantly.
Yes, a Penguin hit site I had given up many years ago just went from 35 to 380 unique visitors.
This one will for sure give a big kick for amazon business.Good that they call it a quality update i wouldn´t bee able to see this right now.
Let's go to Black Hat World:
There are 5 projects of mine which are very very similar to each other. All targeting Beauty/Health niche, all of them have a lot of great content (10k+ articles) and all of them are build on expired domains with a nice brandable name.The G Core Update hit 4 of my 5 projects. One of them, actually the oldest one of them, got a huge push and increased it's organic traffic about 40%. The other 3 projects which are affected lost all heir best rankings. I don't see any pattern here yet but it hit me hard :-(
Health Niche. This site got hit by medic update and now it's rising back without doing anything.
Same here, health niche site which was affected got a huge boost.
Let's go to some Tweets:
They got crushed during the Medic Update, but I'm seeing signs of life from draxe .com. I see a number of strong rankings return for queries they dropped for in August. It's still early, but I'm sure they are hopeful. For example: pic.twitter.com/WGP9fSj0bp
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) March 13, 2019
I've just taken time to look at hourly traffic trends for a bunch of clients previously hit by Aug 1/Sep 27. It's too early to cry victory just yet, but so far we've got a bunch of clients that may be on the way to recovery! pic.twitter.com/PtaZ6DGQ3I
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) March 13, 2019
I dub thee the CoreAF update pic.twitter.com/D5NZEK3qn9
— Andrew Shotland (@localseoguide) March 14, 2019
That one above shows how some metrics can be way off...
I mentioned yesterday that draxe .com showed signs of improvement during the 3/12 update after getting hammered by the Medic Update. Here's an updated search visibility graph. That's a pretty darn good start... we'll see if it sticks. :) pic.twitter.com/H8QXODVf9o
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) March 14, 2019
Great news😀! It`s totally a medic update related change. If you remember while we managed to recover the main domain site on November we never managed to recover our blog (on a subdomain). Now we see a recovery in our blog as well! pic.twitter.com/yreQINrkxu
— Christos Man (@Chris_managoudi) March 15, 2019
So, do you think this company is having a good morning? :) There are some big swings based on the update already. But we're early in, and it can take some time to settle down... so let's see if the surge continues. This site got hammered by the Medic update. pic.twitter.com/dK96ReEkm0
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) March 14, 2019
And one other thing to note is that I'm not seeing reports just yet of major hits to any site. I think it's possible that this update reduced the punitive filter that was applied to some YMYL sites Aug 1 and Sep 27. It's early to say that for sure though.
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) March 14, 2019
I am sure there are many more tweets but it is a big social space...
Blog coverage:
- The first Core Algorithm Update of the year is rolling., Sistrix
- Google's Latest Broad Core Ranking Update: Florida 2, Portent
- Huge Google Update - Florida 2.0 Is Rolling Out! Massive Rankings Fluctuations, Cognitive SEO
- Google Update March 2019 – Florida 2, Bronco
- Google’s ‘Florida 2’ algorithm update And A Broad Core Search Algorithm, Webmaster Radio
- Let’s clear things up: Google’s ‘Florida 2’ algorithm update is not related to original Florida update, Search Engine Land
- Google Florida Update 2: What’s Changed? Early Insights & Reaction, Search Engine Journal
In any even, that is the early discussion. Hopefully we will see more details so we can give clearer direction sometime in the upcoming week or two.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Black Hat World.
Here are all our current stories as of March 27th on the Google core update from March:
- Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On March 12 (Florida 2), March 13, 2019
- When Naming The Google 3/12 Broad Core Ranking Update Florida 2, March 14, 2019
- Google Names The 3/12 Update The "March 2019 Core Update", March 15, 2019
- Speculation Around The Google March 2019 Core Update, March 15, 2019
- Survey: Tell Us How You Were Impacted By The Google March 2019 Core Update, March 15, 2019
- Google March 2019 Core Update Had Many Reversals But It Was Not A Reversal, March 18, 2019
- Google March 2019 Core Update Myth Busting From Google, March 19, 2019
- Google Search Algorithm Update Fluctuations From March 20th to 22nd, March 25, 2019
- Revealing The Google March 2019 Core Update Survey Results, March 26, 2019
