Google did it again, another core update in the books. As of May 18, the Google Search Liaison tweeted that Google’s Core Update was complete. This 14-day update showed a rather large impact on search results which led to firms seeing a change in both their impressions and clicks to their websites from Google. The specifics around this core update, like the majority of every update before it, are largely unknown, but SEO’s have begun to piece together patterns and trends observed over weeks following the beginning of the update roll-out to make a few key inferences regarding its wide impact on search results.

What Is a ‘Core Update’

Google makes  thousands of changes to their algorithm each year which equates to an average of multiple a day. Google is very secretive about the changes they make and the frequency by which they make them. Core updates are large scale rollouts of changes to the way the algorithm works. Google will release a core update every few months, the last of which being in January 2020. These updates typically “shake things up” in the search rankings, allowing Google to rectify any issues with the content that is being displayed and for them to further push their quality scoring and ranking factors to be as optimal for searchers as possible. Core updates are nothing to be alarmed by, unless you don’t have an SEO keeping their finger on the pulse and guiding your website strategy to abide by Google best practices.

The Update’s Impact on Lawyers