One of the two weeks given by Google to roll out the May 2022 Core Update has expired. What are the intermediate results of the update and is it possible to talk about any results at all?
The SEO community is in turmoil. The May update is called one of the toughest updates in the last few years. While the launch was very fast in the first 24 hours and negatively impacted the visibility and traffic of many sites, it didn’t slow down much after 48 hours.
From numerous discussions on webmaster forums, it can be concluded that the highest volatility is observed in the niches of real estate, health and retail. However, these sectors are usually the hardest hit by updates to Google’s core algorithm, says SearchEngines.
SEOs complain about spam in search results. A large number of sites that are not related to the query in any way are shown on the first page of search results in the United States, which is why the positions of all the rest sank and traffic fell. Some webmasters report losing 80% of their traffic. Google has thoroughly shaken up all the tops for keywords and filled them with sites that have nothing that would justify their high position. Because of this, May 2022 Core Update is called the worst update in the history of Google search algorithm updates.
Whether this update is the worst or not is debatable, however, all SEO experts agree that it is one of the most significant. In addition to those affected by the update, there are also those who benefited from it. So, the well-known SEO consultant Glenn Gabe gave an example of one of his sites that significantly improved their positions.
Also, the growth of traffic to their projects (by 30-80%), dedicated to health and economics, was reported by the SEO director of Path Interactive agency Lily Ray. In some cases, articles from the health site now rank above government sites, which typically rank #1 for those keywords, she said.
RankRanger experts also say that the current update is more significant than the November 2021 Core Update. According to their study, the average data for position changes with the current algorithm update is already slightly higher than in November last year.
The rollout of the May 2022 Core Update is ongoing, so this is just an attempt to capture intermediate results for now.
NIXSolutions reminds that Google began rolling out the next update of the main algorithm on May 25. This is a global update affecting all regions, in all languages. It will take about two weeks to fully deploy.
Right after the launch, it became clear that the May 2022 Core Update is having a big impact on Google Discover and featured snippets. And also on the position of information sites that are promoted by non-commercial requests.