In its never-ending efforts to improve search functionality for users, Google has recently released another major algorithm update. This Google algorithm update came out on August 1 of this year, and it has now finished rolling out. This August 2018 Google core algorithm update affects searches around the globe regardless of what region or language a search is conducted in, and there are four main things to know about it.
- Its Focus Is More on Content Rather Than Technical Issue – When Google’s site crawlers index your website, they do check it for broken links, slow-loading pages and other technical problems that will hinder a visitor’s satisfaction with a website. These factors can negatively affect your site’s search ranking, but these sorts of considerations seem to be unchanged by this latest update.
- A Helping Hand for Good Websites Rather Than a Penalty for Bad Ones – The official word from Google is that there’s no specific fix for pages that may perform less well after this update. Its emphasis seems to be to elevate sites that have been undervalued by their search algorithm in the past. If your website has dropped in rankings, therefore, it’s because other sites were elevated above yours rather than yours having been penalized for any reason. They recommend that webmasters simply continue to improve their website and content quality, and their ranking may rise relative to other websites over time.
- Medical, Health and Certain Other Sites Seem to Be Impacted Most – Google will not confirm this, but some analysts have noticed that the August 2018 Google core algorithm update seems to be primarily impacting sites in the areas of medicine and health. This has caused some to dub this the Medic Update.Another category of pages that seem to be particularly impacted are what Google refers to as YMYL (Your Money Your Life) websites.These are sites that can have an impact on your current or future physical or financial well being. This can include websites that give out health or medical advice, offer advice on major life decisions such as parenting or buying a house, offer legal advice or sites that ask for personal information such as bank account numbers or driver’s license numbers.
- What You Can Do if This Update Negatively Affected You – Whatever the impact of this Google algorithm update on your website, Google has said there’s nothing specific for you to do to remedy any drop in your search rankings. Updates happen fairly frequently, and there’s no way of knowing what the next one will be about and how it may specifically affect your website. One thing you can be sure of is that Google’s general rationale behind all of their updates is to enhance their search engine’s ability to connect people with useful information that they are seeking.
For this reason, you need to keep your focus on the best practices of web design and search engine optimization and on producing high-quality content for ranking well overall. Such a strategy can only help you over the long haul in maintaining a fairly steady and high placement on search result pages.
If you think you’ve been hit by the recent August 2018 Google Algorithm, contact Planet 8 Digital today for a FREE consultation and Evaluation, 215-355-5281 and let us know how we can help you.
