How To Recover From A Google Algorithm Update
Almost every business and marketer has been in this position: Google has released a new algorithm or a broad core update and your website, for whatever reason, has tanked. Simple people lose their minds, some people just move on, some people even ask Google to revert their update! Everyone will have their own specific response to losing out because of a Google algorithm update. If you find your website has tanked due to a Google update/change, I will try to answer how you can improve your website and SEO in order to recover from a Google algorithm update!
Can You Recover From An Algorithm Update?
Firstly, can a website actually recover from a Google algorithm update or is it doomed to low traffic and positions for all eternity? Of course it can recover! Whilst Google will tell you time and time again that their algorithm has hundreds or even thousands of updates every single day, the fact is there is no bigger impact than a real broad core algorithm update – which can send a website from the number one spot to page three in some cases!
No matter how bad your website or business has been hit by a Google update, it is important to remember that your website can eventually recover.
Evaluate Your Strategy
The first thing to do is to evaluate your website and your own SEO strategy. In the case of broad core algorithm updates, Google never tells us exactly what has changed and how we can optimise for their new signal weights. You should read the Google docs guide to understand if your website or SEO strategy is whitehat and has no reason to be demoted. Sometimes it’s just common sense, maybe those 30,000 backlinks you bought from an xRumer user was a bad idea. Other times you have to really think about your strategy and take new measures: maybe those 15 thin-content pages about the same topic should be merged together, even if all of the pages are (or were) ranking well for some keywords. Remember, even if you are a professional SEO, you should always speak to your web designer or a professional Manchester website design agency before making big changes to your website.
Evaluate Competitors
It’s also important to remember that sometimes your website wasn’t demoted because you’re doing something wrong – maybe it’s just that another website is doing something else right, so their website has gone up as opposed to Google simply lowering your website. Compare your search results pages before and after the update, find out the major winners and see what those websites have in common. Remember: Google algorithms can score a website based on their domain as a whole in addition to a score for each page it finds, sometimes the answers you’re looking for in your competitor research isn’t on the page you’re looking at.
Other things to think about is the brand and authoritativeness of your competitors. If Amazon is ranking higher than you, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re website is better for SEO than yours: it’s known that Google shows preferential treatment to known and trusted brands over smaller companies.
Patience
Recovery won’t come over night. It won’t come within a couple of weeks. It will take months at the minimum to see some sort of recovery – most likely when Google releases their next algorithm update (despite advice from John Mueller). Remain patient and you will eventually bear the fruits of your labour.
