August 1st 2018, Google completed a full roll out of what they are calling a broad, global, core update – Extremely vague in our own opinion, so we’ll try to drill down on what we know to give you a better understanding.
Each day, Google usually releases one or more changes designed to improve our results. Some are focused around specific improvements. Some are broad changes. Last week, we released a broad core algorithm update. We do these routinely several times per year….
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 12, 2018
The highlighted message from Google around this update is that “there is nothing you can do to fix your site”.
So what should be done exactly if you were negatively affected? Here’s what we know.
There’s no “fix” for pages that may perform less well other than to remain focused on building great content. Over time, it may be that your content may rise relative to other pages.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 12, 2018
After the tweet Google further added that “There’s no “fix” for pages that may perform less well other than to remain focused on building great content. Over time, it may be that your content may rise relative to other pages.” and “As with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded….”
As per SEMrush’s SERP Volatility Sensor, you can see some heavy action around august 1 to august 3 with things cooling off a few days after. So SERPs definatly got a shake up and with Google not giving too much info about this one we are putting it down to quality update and the best course of action is to treat it as one. If your rankings increased – that’s fantastic, keep doing what you’re doing. However if you experienced negative impact, we believe the best course of action is to keep up your SEO efforts but focus on bettering your user engagement metrics and the content on the site to give your users a better experience.