If you’ve been involved in SEO for any length of time, you’ll probably have noticed that there’s a seemingly endless stream of news articles warning about the latest Google algorithm update. Every few months, we’re told that Google has made some enormous change to the way it ranks websites, potentially causing businesses to lose their search engine rankings overnight. This is usually accompanied by plenty of speculation about which types of websites have been affected, what Google might be trying to achieve and, inevitably, what businesses need to do to recover from the latest disaster.
Having worked in SEO for well over a decade, I’ve seen quite a few of these updates come and go, and while some have certainly had a significant impact on particular websites, I’m not convinced that the constant panic surrounding them is particularly justified. In fact, I’d argue that if you’re following generally accepted SEO best practices and concentrating on building a decent website, there’s a good chance you can simply ride out most of these changes without doing anything particularly dramatic.
Google Updates Aren’t Necessarily Bad News
One of the things I think people frequently overlook is that Google’s search results are essentially a competition between websites. If your website ranks third for a particular keyword and an algorithm update causes it to drop to fifth, that means two other websites have moved above you. From their perspective, the update has been a success, even though you might be rather less enthusiastic about it.
In this respect, Google’s ranking updates are something of a zero-sum game. There are only ten conventional organic positions on the first page, and if one website moves up, another generally has to move down. The overall number of positions available hasn’t suddenly changed simply because Google has adjusted the way it determines which websites deserve them.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the amount of traffic websites receive is necessarily fixed, as changes to search behaviour and the appearance of Google’s results can affect how many people click through to individual websites. However, the important point is that a ranking decrease for one business doesn’t necessarily mean Google has done something terrible to the internet. It might simply mean that another website is now being considered a better result.
Why Does Google Keep Changing Its Algorithm?
Google’s main objective is to provide people with relevant search results, because if its search engine consistently fails to deliver useful information, people might eventually start using something else. To achieve this, Google continually adjusts the algorithms responsible for determining which pages should appear for particular searches.
Some changes are relatively minor, while others are considerably more significant. Google’s Panda update, first introduced in 2011, attempted to reduce the visibility of low-quality content, while Penguin, introduced in 2012, targeted websites attempting to manipulate rankings through unnatural links.
These updates caused considerable disruption for some businesses, particularly those that had been relying on questionable SEO techniques. However, it’s worth remembering that many websites experienced little or no negative impact, while others actually benefited from competitors being pushed further down the results.
Google has also made numerous improvements to how it interprets search queries, including the introduction of Hummingbird in 2013 and RankBrain in 2015. These changes have generally been intended to improve the relevance of search results rather than penalise website owners for doing something wrong.
Don’t Confuse Ranking Changes with Penalties
This is another area where I think there’s a considerable amount of misunderstanding. Whenever somebody notices that their website has dropped a few positions in Google, they’ll often assume they’ve been penalised, particularly if there’s been discussion of an algorithm update around the same time.
However, there’s an important distinction between Google taking action against a website for violating its guidelines and simply changing the way it evaluates different pages. If you’ve been purchasing hundreds of artificial backlinks or creating thousands of low-quality pages purely to manipulate search rankings, then you’ve probably got a legitimate reason to be concerned about Google’s spam detection systems.
On the other hand, if you’ve got a reasonably well-maintained website containing useful content, there’s no particular reason to assume that a drop in rankings means you’ve done something wrong.
Search engine rankings are constantly changing anyway, regardless of whether Google has announced a major update. Competitors improve their websites, new content gets published and search engines continually reassess which results are most relevant. Some fluctuation is therefore perfectly normal, and I’d be cautious about treating every movement as evidence of a problem.
The SEO Industry Doesn’t Help
I think it’s also worth acknowledging that the SEO industry has a tendency to exaggerate the significance of algorithm updates, particularly when there’s an opportunity to generate traffic, attract new clients or sell services to worried website owners.
Whenever Google announces a change, you’ll inevitably find articles claiming to have identified exactly which ranking factors have become more important, often based on analysing a relatively small number of websites that have experienced changes in their rankings.
While this research can sometimes be useful, it’s worth remembering that correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation. Just because several websites that lost rankings happen to contain a particular type of content doesn’t automatically mean Google has introduced a new penalty targeting that content.
I’ve also seen businesses make substantial changes to perfectly good websites because somebody has convinced them that the latest Google update requires an entirely different approach to SEO. In some circumstances, those changes could potentially do more harm than the original update.
What Should You Actually Be Doing?
Personally, I think the most sensible approach is to concentrate on the fundamental principles of good SEO rather than attempting to anticipate every adjustment Google makes to its algorithms.
That means making sure your website is technically sound, loads reasonably quickly, works properly on mobile devices and contains useful, relevant information about the products or services you’re offering. It also means avoiding manipulative techniques such as buying artificial backlinks, stuffing pages with keywords or creating large quantities of content purely to attract search engine traffic.
None of these recommendations are particularly revolutionary, but that’s rather the point. Google has been encouraging website owners to concentrate on providing useful content and a good user experience for years, and I don’t see much reason to believe those principles are suddenly going to become irrelevant.
Of course, if your website experiences a substantial and sustained decline in organic traffic, it’s worth investigating. Google Search Console can help identify which pages and search queries have been affected, while your analytics data can establish whether the changes are actually having a meaningful impact on your business.
However, I’d recommend gathering some evidence before making major changes, particularly if the fluctuations have only been apparent for a few days.
Just Ride Out the Waves
Ultimately, I think businesses need to accept that SEO isn’t something where you can achieve a particular ranking and expect to retain it indefinitely. Google’s algorithms will continue changing, competitors will continue improving their websites and search engine rankings will inevitably fluctuate as a result.
However, if you’re consistently producing useful content, maintaining your website properly and following sensible SEO practices, there’s a reasonable chance that the improvements and declines caused by individual updates will balance out to some extent over time.
That’s not a guarantee, of course, and even well-optimised websites can lose rankings when competitors improve or Google’s assessment of relevance changes. Nevertheless, I’d be much more concerned about the long-term direction of a website’s organic traffic than whether a handful of keywords have moved up or down following the latest update.
My advice would be to treat Google algorithm updates in much the same way as fluctuations in the stock market: keep an eye on what’s happening, investigate anything genuinely concerning, but don’t assume that every downward movement requires an immediate response.
If your SEO strategy is fundamentally sound, there’s a good chance that the best thing you can do when Google announces another update is simply carry on doing what you were doing before.