What is a Google core update?
Short answer
A Google core update is a broad change to the systems Google uses to rank search results. Google announces these several times a year. They aren't aimed at particular websites, and Google says a page that drops after one hasn't necessarily done anything wrong. Other pages may have been judged a better match.
Several times a year Google announces and releases a core update, which is a broad change to the systems it uses to rank search results. It isn’t aimed at particular websites or at one rule. Google describes it as a reassessment of how its systems judge content overall, which is why results can shift for sites that changed nothing.
How a core update differs from other Google changes
Google adjusts its search systems constantly, and most adjustments are small and pass without comment. A core update is the broad, announced kind. Spam updates and manual actions are often confused with it.
| Event | What it is | How you find out |
|---|---|---|
| Core update | A broad reassessment of how results are ranked | Google announces it and lists it on its Search Status Dashboard |
| Spam update | A change aimed at practices that break Google’s spam policies | Also announced by Google |
| Manual action | A penalty applied to one site by a human reviewer | The Manual actions report in Google Search Console |
The last row matters most to an owner. A core update doesn’t show up as a notice in your account. If Search Console shows no manual action, your site hasn’t been penalized by a reviewer, whatever the timing looks like.
What a drop after a core update means
It doesn’t necessarily mean a page broke a rule. Google says this directly in its guidance on core updates: pages that fall may have nothing wrong with them that needs fixing. Its systems have reassessed the field, and other pages now come out ahead.
Google has compared this to a list of best films that is redone a few years later. Some films move down because newer ones were added or the judges weighed things differently. It also means that anyone who says exactly why your page moved is offering an opinion. Google doesn’t publish what each update changed.
What to do during and after one
Wait for the rollout to finish before drawing conclusions. A core update is released gradually, and rankings can swing while that happens. Google posts on its Search Status Dashboard when an update starts and when it’s complete.
Once it’s complete:
- In Google Search Console, compare a period before the update with a period after it, by page and by search query.
- Separate a small slip from a large fall. Google’s guidance advises against drastic changes over a small one.
- For pages that fell a long way, read them against the questions Google publishes for judging whether content is helpful, reliable and written for people.
- Improve the pages that deserve it. Don’t delete or rewrite everything.
Google says improvements can be recognized over time, and that some effects may only show at a later update. Neither Google nor I can promise a page its old position back. On a service page, that kind of improvement is content for SEO work.
Do core updates affect the map pack
Partly, as far as anyone outside Google can observe. Map results are ranked on relevance, distance and prominence, and Google’s own help page for local ranking says a business’s position in ordinary web results is one factor in prominence. A home-service company might therefore see its ordinary listings move while the map pack holds, or see both shift. The only way to know is to measure both before assuming.
What I wouldn’t do
Close dates don’t make the update the cause. A redesign or a lost redirect in the same month can explain a drop that gets blamed on Google, and so can an indexing fault. Work through the other reasons Google rankings drop first.
I’d also be wary of any “core update recovery” package. There’s no setting that reverses an update, and a provider who claims to know the fix in advance is guessing. The useful work is the ordinary work of organic SEO: find the pages that fell, find out what the pages now above them do better, change one thing and measure.