SEOIntel Weekly News Round-up (Second Week of September 2024)

A week after the completion of the August 2024 Core Update and it seems like volatility is still being experienced in the search results – with some experiencing a boost in traffic, while some experiencing losses. Other than that, it seems to be a bit quiet in the SEO world this week. Check out this week’s notable SEO news below:

Search Rankings Remain Volatile A Week After Core Update Completion

A week since the August 2024 Core Update has finished its rollout in September 3, ranking volatility still remains. Some sites have reported sudden increases in traffic to their sites, while some have experienced losses. It seems to be a rollercoaster ride and it has not fully completed yet. According to Seach Engine Roundtable, tracking tools are also reporting volatility.

In the updated Core Update help page, they did mention waiting at least a full week after the update completes before analyzing your site, so it may be best to wait it out a bit more to see definite results before analysis and changes can be done.

Check out the help page on core updates for further guidance on what to do after a core update if you experience drops in rank and traffic.

Rigorous Spam Detection in Indexing API

Google has made updates to its Indexing API Quickstart Documentation. In the documentation, they state that all submissions through the Indexing API undergo rigorous spam detection. Any attempts to abuse the Indexing API, including the use of multiple accounts or other means to exceed usage quotas, may result in access being revoked.

What Is The Indexing API?

The Indexing API allows site owners to directly notify Google when their job posting or livestreaming video pages are added or removed. This allows Google to schedule pages for a fresh crawl, which can lead to higher-quality user traffic. The Indexing API can only be used to crawl pages with either JobPosting or BroadcastEvent embedded in a VideoObject. For websites with many short-lived pages like job postings or livestream videos, the Indexing API keeps content fresh in search results because it allows updates to be pushed individually.

Some sites have been using the API to help index their pages faster, which could be a reason for the updated documentation to include their rigorous spam detection for those who use it. Note that the API is only for Job Postings and Livestreams and will not work for other purposes – it can even get you banned now.

Interview Of Danny Sullivan – Google’s Search Liaison

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable interviewed Danny Sullivan – Google’s Search Liaison on Google’s Search Quality, Core Updates, and the future of search. The interview is quite insightful and can be accessed here.

Here are some notable parts of it:

• “Your phone gets updated from time to time,” and “typically you don’t notice it,” Sullivan explained Google Search does the same thing, about 5,000 times per year he added. But when it comes to core update, “occasionally your phone gets a bigger update,” he said – and that is what core updates are about, those bigger updates. Sullivan said, “core updates are like those sort of bigger updates for Search.”
• “And our ranking systems are different, and among other things, our ranking systems are also rewarding other kind of content too, including forum content and social content, because that’s an important part of providing a good set of diverse results,”
• “If you move from first to second, that can be a notable traffic impact. That’s what happens. It doesn’t mean that we don’t like your content. We clearly do like your content. That’s why you’re in the top results. But it’s going to be hard for you to then regain all that traffic back because of something else ranking higher, which is still useful to people as well, and overall if everything is useful to people on search, then overall everybody gains.”
• “before we roll anything out. It’s evaluated, it’s tested, there’s experiments and then it’s rater reviewed.” So there is no reason to have to change it mid-way through.
• “I absolutely don’t want to take away from the lived experience of these other kinds of sites that clearly are producing good content, and their hearts are in the right place and our ranking systems are not doing a good enough job for them than they probably should do. And that’s what we’re continuing to work on. And if that’s what you believe you’re doing, you’re producing really good content. It’s for your audience, you have it in mind, you feel you’re right with what people would want, then you should continue to do that.” “And we’re going to continue to try to reward that kind of content because we want that content to do well.”