On the 3rd of December, Google Search Liason released a tweet that the search giants were about to release an algorithm update for their search engine:
Typically, as Google stated above, this happens quite a few times a year. However, due to the nature of the pandemic, it has been delayed until now.
Such Google search updates tend to come with a lot of pessimism. Most website publishers are used to how ‘search’ is and how to gain traffic through search. Therefore, any updates that could possibly alter this will come as a risk that most publishers would rather not take.
However, all updates by Google are aimed at improving its search engine, user experience, and relevance. For this reason, if you know the core areas of good SEO, which will always be high-quality unique content, above anything else, you should not deviate from this.
What did the December 2020 Update do?
Google’s latest update seems to have benefited some websites, and de-ranked others.
From looking at conversing with other publishers, it appears that many review articles/sites have been targeted in such a de-ranking, whilst websites with high domain authority have seemingly had an increase in ranking.
What should you do?
Firstly, don’t and never panic.
If you have been de-ranked, there is most likely a very good reason for this. Some of the questions I would ask myself if I was de-ranked, could be:
- What is my website about?
- Does my website have a high domain authority in the area I am talking about?
- Do I create high-quality content?
- Is my content more based on information and facts, or more on opinions (such as reviews)?
- Have my competitors had an increase in rankings?
For me, the biggest takeaway is domain authority. It is becoming very important to Google that the website’s domain authority marries up to the content that is being created on that domain. For example, if the NHS (national health service of the United Kingdom) made an article about Paul Pogba, the footballer, leaving Manchester United, you wouldn’t be surprised that this would not rank. Equally, if you saw a sports site talk about the symptoms of COVID-19, you will equally agree they will never outrank the NHS’s equivalent.
Domain authority comes with high-quality content in a specific niche. With this, my biggest take away from this is to:
- Make sure your website is aimed at a specifically targeted niche and nothing else.
- Make sure your content is all aimed at the same niche.
- Write high-quality unique content, as you should always be doing!
- Concentrate on getting your domain authority up.
