This year, on May 4th, Google started rolling out its May 2020 core update. It can take a couple of weeks for the update to fully roll out. However, based on what has been observed so far, this particular update can be considered as a big broad update.
In this detailed article, we discuss what the May 2020 Core Update by Google is all about as well as the major winners and losers from it.
What is May 2020 Google core Algorithm Update about?
The Google Core May 2020 update was initiated on Monday, May 4th, 2020, in the United States, and subsequently began to affect other countries. It is expected that this update would take roughly two weeks to spread to different SERPs. Google also introduced multiple algorithm updates earlier in this quarter. However, after the COVID-19 outbreak, many parts of the organization were shut down. Due to this, many people thought that Google would put a hold on its new update until things came back to normal.
Just like its previous updates, Google has not given any precise information about the changes in the search algorithm. It has also not specified the topics or industries that are being focused on in this update. It is also not clear if the update has a connection to the pandemic or the changing search behavior of the users.
Changes in the Google Search Algorithm
Past observations suggest that every category has been affected across the internet by the search algorithm core update by Google. An SEO agency, Noble Studios, has been reviewing the deviation changes which have hit some particular categories massively. The SEO agency is also reviewing how clients in these categories are performing with the changes due to the new Google search algorithm.
Such deviations help us in understanding the difference between the volatility of a keyword for a particular day versus the weekly or monthly average. This helps us in understanding which clients or categories were more unstable during a specific day.
Google Algorithm Changes to The SERPs
Mobile SERPs have seen around 22% more volatility as compared to the desktop SERPs. It is essential to understand that volatility does not necessarily mean that things are going in the wrong direction. In many industries, there has been a positive movement of 2.57% for the SERPs. This is because Google has changed its core algorithm. Following are the most essential mobile SERP features that have been observed so far:
- The top of the page ads on about 11.6% of SERPs have gone up by 32% within the last month
- The bottom of the page ads has gone down by 24% in the last 30 days on 2.8% of the SERP results
- Sitelinks in almost 71% of the SERP results have gone up by 3% in the past 4 weeks
- ‘Top Stories’ on nearly 9% of the SERP results have gone up by 22% in the past one month
- ‘People Also Ask’ have declined by .25% in the past month, in 39% of the SERP results
Besides observing changes in mobile searches, let us also look at the changes for desktop searches. Following are the most significant changes that have been seen in the SERP features:
- The top of the page ads has gone up by 105% in the last one month on 7.8% of the SERP results
- The bottom of the page ads has gone down by 337% in the previous 4 weeks on 5.6% of the SERPs
- Sitelinks in around 69.7% of the SERPs have increased by 3% in the last 30 days
- ‘Top Stories’ have gone up by 22% in the last 1 month on 9% of the SERP results
- ‘People Also Ask’ have seen an increase of 5% in the past 30 days on 37.3% of SERPs
Who was impacted by the May 2020 core update?
Just like other recent core updates, the Google May 2020 core algorithm update has disproportionately affected the YMYL (your money, your life) websites. This can directly impact the health, safety, happiness, financial security, or well-being of the users. Below are some category examples where significant changes have been observed in organic visibility:
- Fitness
- nutrition and recipes
- news
- science and medical news
- drugs, alcohol, and rehab
- banking and finance
- natural medicine
- music and entertainment
- history
Who’s on the Winning and Losing Side of the May 2020 Core Update?
Most of the core algorithm updates are designed in such a manner that they can bring about a noticeable change in the search results across different languages and countries. However, there are always winners and losers in the SERP. One can easily spot ranking drops or gains after a core update is rolled out. During this pandemic, one can expect to see queries that are related to tourism, travel, live events, etc., to go down significantly. Hence, the volatility of different categories should not come as a surprise.
However, at this point, the highest impact from the May 2020 algorithm update can be seen across many industries, some of which were already impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic. Using the SEMrush Sensor, one can compare the average volatility value 2 days after and 7 days before the announcement of the update. The categories that were most influenced are Real Estate, Travel, Pets, and Health. This is equally true across both mobile and desktop searches.
One can also see that many big domains were also affected by this update. More than half of the vital ranking changes in the United States occurred at websites that had traffic of more than 1 million monthly visitors.
Winners of SERP
Many industries gained popularity and ranking due to the May 2020 Core Algorithm update. The biggest winner of this update is the News sector.
Losers of SERP
The offline Entertainment industry has been hit massively by this update, and so have the sites that were directly or indirectly related to it.
What to do About the May 2020 Core Algorithm Update?
Many people are wondering about what to do if the May 2020 core algorithm Google update has negatively affected their search ranking. Many might suggest doing nothing. However, this is not entirely correct; one does not have to make any major changes to the website necessarily. In case you lose above 50% of the organic traffic, or you have an important project that has to be completed quickly, you can contact an SEO agency to help you.
If you do not belong to this category, just have a look at the pages which have seen the most losses. You can look for ways to optimize the existing web pages or create new pages that have excellent content to address the search intent of a user.
While it is common for some pages to see a drop in traffic due to this algorithm update — some sites may face a decline in organic traffic or an overall gain. No defined rule can fix such an impact of the update. However, few tactics can be applied. Below are the top tactics that can be used for the May 2020 Algorithm Update:
- Try to produce content in clusters. You should also do the proper soloing of this content.
- Ensure that all the technical and foundational corrections are done on the website. One should not cut corners here, as the website is the foundation of the site’s SEO.
- Optimize the website for speed. It can be done by merely weighing down the pages or finding solutions that can lighten the load. You can even look into a proper AMP implementation for the website.
- Ensure that Google looks at your website as an authority for the topics that your business is based on.
- Conduct gap analysis for competitive websites to check which keywords they are ranking for. Doing this can provide one with new content areas on the site that you might have overlooked in the past.
- Ensure that you are making use of structured data, precisely the structured data that is being used by Google for SERPs. Schema can turn out to be a game-changer and may even help you in getting more clicks for your website.
How to deal with it?
If you wish to navigate through this update, the guidelines of Google on this update remain the same. In short, there is not much one can do about this algorithm update or any changes in rankings due to the update. All you can do is to improve the quality of your content and ensure that it is better than industry-standards.
You can also check if the content is authoritative, adequately formatted, helpful to users, and does not contain any SEO mistakes. It is also advisable to not make any substantial decisions about the website until the update fully rolls out.
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