Google’s Core Search Update Confirmed: Google Search Algorithm Update & Changes
Google was rolling out June 19 core update that was pre-announced by Google. These updates are named as ‘June 2019 core update‘. These updates will be affecting how and which site will appear in rich search results on SERPs. Have they been finished? Let’s dive into it.
This summer is going to be interesting, as warned, the June 2019 updates are finished rolling out. Experts have started evaluating the impacts of the ‘June 19 core update’. Experts are trying to figure out what has been changed? How is it affecting websites? What can be done to keep a site healthy? and so on.
Users have spotted several changes like:
- Google Ads is updated with some new features
- New update on a new Rich Results Test tool
and many more that will be addressed as you’ll walk through this blog post.
Google’s Core Update Rolled Out
The June 2019 core update was slowly being rolled out. On the 8th of June, Google’s Danny Sullivan announced the completion of the core algorithm update which was launched on 3rd June. As you may probably know, Google always keeps the details of most of its updates a secret. This time also, Google has not provided details on specific issues.
There are a couple of things that have changed, webmasters analyzed. John Mueller mentioned a couple of things that you should know. You should check for outdated content, unrecognizable authors, and stock images instead of the author’s real images. There is an article by Amit Singhal’s covering signs of a quality site, Mueller has added that relevant sites still can be used as a reference.
Some sites were affected by an undesirably great or intense degree but this update did not impact a lot of SERP volatility as per the different tools including SEMrush sensor, etc. For example, crypto and financial news site CCN declared that they have lost 70% of the organic traffic overnight which results in a 90% revenue drop, due to which they had to shut it down. According to the newspapers’ representative Jesus Mendez, UK media giant Daily Mail lost over 50% of its traffic (answered in Google Webmasters forum).
Domain Diversity Update
This is a noteworthy update that may affect bigger websites whose more than two webpages rank on the first page of Google for specific keywords. This update might affect the sites who are trying to monopolize the SERPs. From now on, the top 10 results will not show more than 2 listings from the same domain.
Google said in a statement, “The objective of this update is to show the variety of domains on SERPs”; it doesn’t mean that there will be no exceptions. In some cases, there might be more than two results from the same domain in the top 10 results when Google will consider them appropriate.
Carousel Local Pack
It has been noticed by some Google users that a new type of local pack appears on the mobile screen. Google shows up to 3 carousels with regional companies for some inquiries rather than listings. Here is an image from Mike Blumenthal showing this new feature.
Choose Area Button in Local Pack
Google’s new feature now allows users to choose an area for local search, which in return shows local results for queries. Noticed by Valentin Pletzer, this helpful local pack feature offers a number of nearby cities near to make the search specific. As usual, there is no official information from the side of Google on the scale of testing.
New SOS Alerts
SOS alerts by Google has been also updated that appears in the search and map. Alerts provide information about earthquakes, such as floods, natural disasters, hurricanes, etc., these SOS alerts contain information about what is happening? Where is happening? along with the links for news, phone rescue services, and real-time visual data. For example, the movement of a flood or a hurricane.
New Search Menu
You may have observed this already. after a number of testing, Google launched the new search menu design. Now on the search menu, Google shows icons next to the names of Google services including video, pictures, search, maps, shopping). Apart from this new design, no other features were added in design.
Google Ads News
Campaign-Level Conversions
Google Ads users now can set up campaign-level conversion for search and display campaigns. Google said, “Previously, your “Conversions” column selections applied to all campaigns in your account. This meant that if you had multiple campaigns intended to drive different goals, perhaps with independent marketing budgets, you’d need to create multiple accounts in order to optimize them separately.”
Let me break it down, now you can choose specific conversion actions for each campaign, it ensures that your budget is spent the way you want. This feature is available for all accounts using search and display campaigns; video campaigns will be supported later for this year. To find more information on setting up campaign-level conversion in Google Help Center.
Source: Choose Which Conversion Actions to Bid For at the Campaign Level
New Google Ads Extension Test
Google is examining a new automated extension for paid search results, which gives the advertised domain’s popularity. Where Google takes this information and what does it means exactly – paid, general, or specific keyword traffic – is not clear. As a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land, “We’re always testing new ways to improve our experience for our advertisers and users, but don’t have anything specific to announce right now.”
Google Tools News
More GSC Data
The time range in the performance report is increased by default for the users using Google Search Console. Now, it’s 90 days instead of 28 days (for both Search and Discover reports). It is easier for a user to walk through the analytics for their site over a longer period of time.
Rich Result Test Update
There are some features that have added to the Rich Results Test tool which allows you to check out How a Googlebot mobile or Googlebot sees the structured markup on a particular web page.
Google said, “The new functionality will help you review your structured data implementation using both user agents to prepare for mobile-first indexing.” As most of us know, to get considerable rich results, the structured data on both desktop and mobile sets need to be equal.
From 1 July 2019, the default update will be the mobile-first indexing for all websites except older sites. Older sites opt to continue to evaluate and monitor Google’s best practices if they want their website to appear in rich results.
New Webmaster Conference Events
Google has announced their new Webmaster Conference which will be held in different regions of the world. This conference will be consisting of a series of local offline events. The objective is to provide the opportunity to the local web creators who are not able to travel internationally for XYZ reasons.
Web creators this way would be able to get more information about Google Search. All of the events will be ‘easily accessible and free’ in the region where they’ll be organized. To find the information about upcoming events visit – Webmaster Conference Websites. Near upcoming events are planned in India and Indonesia.
New SEO Mythbusting Episodes
Martin Splitt has uploaded two new videos in the SEO Mythbusting series on YouTube. The first one is dedicated to JavaScript and has a lot in common with the series of videos on the same topic released a couple of months earlier on the same channel.
The second video is about Web Performance. In that video, Martin Splitt and Microsoft’s Chief Engineer Ada Rose Cannon discuss various aspects of mobile internet, site performance, HTML & CSS, JavaScript, performance metrics as ranking factors, and so on.
All videos can be accessed on the Google Webmasters Official Channel.
This is all I’ve gathered for you in this blog post about Google’s June 19 Core Update. Have a great summer and leave a comment in case you’ve any query. I’d love to hear from you. There is a lot more to come, stay tuned!
