I lost 50% of google search impressions/clicks with the May 2020 Google Core Update
The December Google 2020 Core Update update gave me back the 50% clicks I had lost
Thank god
Google core update. Many of us bounced back...I'm still about 50% lower than I was pre-May update sadly...but I'll take the 100% increase to what it was at post-May update. Still sucks.Something nice seemed to happen on Dec 4th
Google is currently putting together the final changes for a search algorithm update that they’ve announced will land in May 2021.
The update is being called the Page Experience update because of its focus on usability rather than things like keywords or search relevance. Google has already provided some information on the update, which aims to measure and potentially rank the experience that a user encounters when visiting a page.
The fact that Google have given so much warning about the update says all you need to know about how seriously to take it. We know it’ll impact organic search results but as of yet, there’s no word on whether there will be any specific impact on Google My Business rankings.
At the very highest level, the update will for the first time implement the Core Web Vitals that Google defined in 2020 into the search algorithm. The aim of those metrics is that users should have a web experience that is straightforward, reliable, safe, and works great on any device.
The Page Experience update is ultimately the leveling up of those metrics from a ‘request’ to a ‘demand’, in that, theoretically at least, your local business site will perform worse in search if a comparable competitor is performing better in Core Web Vitals.
To clarify, that's on a Xenforo forum site?Thankfully I score a 100% perfect on web core vitals and am not local
Biggest culprit for poor Web Core Vitals is Google Ads. On my site, pages without Google Ads get a great score while ones with Google Ads get a poor score. If anyone can show me a page with Google Ads that gets a green mobile score (90-100), I would be shocked.
If this actually becomes a ranking factor then Youtube, which dominates many of the Search results, should get penalized. Not holding my breath on that. Unfortunately Google essentially has monopoly power in search and no longer follows the "Don't be evil" motto (actually was removed in 2018).
You can do quite a lot of forum curating to help SEO.
- Encourage on-topic posting (discourage or move off topic posts from within important threads)
- Merge threads that are about basically the same things (similar threads addon is good)
- Encourage people not to start a new thread about the same topic as an existing one.
- Get rid of trolls.
- Encourage meaningful thread titles that include words that are right on topic.
- Have easy navigation so that people who find your forum are encouraged to stay there (engaged) and look around.
- Search for old threads that only have one post. I just delete them because usually it's a question that nobody answered, so it's useless to Google.
- Not just threads, post some useful well written articles on pages or resources., structure them like proper articles with headings and subheadings, articulate writing, good original clear images, internal and external linking.
- Look at the competition and work out why they do better in Google.
- Think about search questions.
Yes, thank you for asking (many wouldn't!)Would you allow me to reuse this somewhere?
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