Focus on useful content: Google supports small and independent sites with the latest core update.
Launch of the August 2024 core update
On 15 August, Google announced the distribution of the core of August 2024, and the process was completed approximately one month after it was completed.
This update is not just a routine update, but a direct response to feedback received following the September 2023 Helpful Content Update, which penalized several small publishers.
Google’s New Focus
John Mueller, Google’s Search Advocate, explained that the update aims to improve the quality of search results by highlighting truly useful content, especially from small and independent publishers. This change responds to criticism and a lot of feedback Google received after the March 2024 major update, trying to valorize authentic and relevant content.
Muller wrote:
Today, we launched our August 2024 core update to Google Search. This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.
This latest update takes into account the feedback we’ve heard from some creators and others over the past few months. As always, we aim to connect people with a range of high quality sites, including small or independent sites that are creating useful, original content, when relevant to users’ searches. This is an area we’ll continue to address in future updates. This update also aims to better capture improvements that sites may have made, so we can continue to show the best of the web.
We’ve also updated our help page about core updates, which includes more in-depth guidance for those who may see changes after an update.
Updated the guide for publishers
Along with the rollout, Google has updated its Core Updates guide to help websites better understand the changes and improve their online presence. These resources are especially useful for publishers who notice changes in rankings after an update.
What to do if you are affected
For those who are negatively impacted, Google suggests focusing on creating useful content for users, rather than focusing solely on search engine rankings. While there are no specific actions to recover, Google encourages you to follow the updated guide to improve the quality of your site.
Conclusion
For now, seven days after the launch of the rollout, almost “nothing under the sun”.
The SearchEngineLand site reports some ongoing changes in the ranking that are supposedly “repairing” the losses of some sites such as House Fresh and Retro Dodo.
The August 2024 core update represents another step forward for Google in promoting quality content, especially for small publishers.
However, we will have to wait until the end of the rollout scheduled for mid-September to actually understand what is changing.
Stay tuned for further developments and if you have any thoughts or experiences to share about this update, feel free to comment below.
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