SEO industry experts are actively discussing the impact of the recently launched May 2022 Core Update on Google search results.
Based on messages on Twitter and on SEO forums (Webmaster World, Black Hat World, Google Webmaster Help), a very large drawdown is noted for information sites that are promoted by non-commercial queries. Some webmasters report a 30% drop in search traffic, with the numbers changing every hour. Sites with a large amount of UGC content and adult-themed sites also went into the red.
A large number of sites stopped showing up in featured snippets, losing 100% of their featured snippets. The drop is also noted by the owners of sites with unstructured content, however, these are only their assumptions about the reason for the loss of search visibility, says SearchEngines.
According to SEO experts, search results are replete with spam pages with no useful content (some even generated by AI).
SERP monitoring tools also capture strong fluctuations.
NIX Solutions notes that most specialists try to be philosophical about these changes, hoping that the chatter will soon subside, and the sites will return to their positions and to the previous level of traffic.
“Remember this rule of thumb regarding Core Update… Don’t panic on the first day unless you’re completely wiped out. Google claims it takes 2 weeks for a full rollout, but you should feel this update within 48 hours or it won’t affect you at all. Then wait until the dust settles before analyzing your SERP visibility,” one of the webmasters quotes the Search Engine Roundtable.
We continue to monitor the situation.