Google’s core May 2022 updates continue but we’re probably at the end
The May 2022 Google Core Update was only about 13 days ago, we expect Google to say that the update will roll out sometime in the next 72 hours or so. But until then, the tremors appear to have continued, with large spikes on Sunday, June 5, 2022.
I was offline from Friday night until last night so I’m still playing catch up. But from what I can tell, there were some big shakes in Google Search results on Sunday June 5th. SEO talk and Google tracking tools picked it up. It appears to be the end of that core May 2022 update.
Fast facts for the May 2022 Google General Core Update
As a reminder, here are the quick facts we know about this core update:
Name: Google General Core Update May 2022
Released: May 25, 2022 at 11:30 PM ET
Develop: It will take one to two weeks to deploy
Goals: Watch all types of content
Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards great web pages
Global: This is a global update that affects all regions, in all languages.
Impact: Google did not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were affected by this update.
Discover: Core updates affect Google Discover and other features, as well as feature snippets and more.
Recover: If this affected you, you’ll need to look at your content and see if you can do better with basic Google update tips.
Update: Google will make regular updates to this algorithm, but may not communicate them in the future. Perhaps this is what we have seen in the last few weeks or all those unconfirmed Google updates.
We have published many stories from some SEOs about this basic update here. The comments on all of these posts are huge, so check them out when you have time.
Google tracking tools show Spike on June 5
This is what we are seeing with the tools:
Mozcast:
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Semrush:
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RankRanger:
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SERPmetrics:
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Algoroo:
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Advanced Web Rankings:
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Cognitive SEO:
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SERPstat:
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Accuranker:
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So you can see that most, not all, of the tools picked up a lot of volatility on or around June 5th, which is normal, we typically see jitters after a core update is released.
SEO Chatter Spikes ~ June 5
The folks at WebmasterWorld have been chatting a lot since the base update was released. But there was an increase in that talk about change around June 5, starting as early as June 4. Normally, the SEO talk arrives before the tools receive the changes. This is what we see with the chat:
This weekend seems to be a strong weekend that I am not used to. Normally, traffic is interrupted somewhat from Friday afternoon to Saturday and picks up again after midday on Sunday. Today it looks like what you would expect to see at any time during the week.
Saturday I was right at the lower end of a weekend average at 56.7% and after 14 hours of my Sunday G so far, it’s abnormally low, plus looking at it weekly, I’m down 30%. I need to check again, but it seems that the reduction is in my most popular keyword products that have been demoted in the US SERPs.
News website in the financial niche: I didn’t notice much of a change last week (when this basic update was announced), but since Friday the site traffic is down 30%. However, the SERP was hardly affected at all, still marinating in high rankings for popular keywords, which makes me suspect that the sharp drop is due to Google News and/or news articles primarily. For the last two years, all the basic updates were either neutral or positive for us, however this time it seems to be very bad so far.
My traffic has been bombarded… every day US traffic starts between -50% and -70% of the norm. Canada is at zero on most days and the UK is down significantly, as is most Western European traffic. Only Australia, Eastern Europe and the developing world measure up… lots of India, Paki, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Africa.
The Semrush sensor is pegging at 9.0 on volatility. The last time it was close to that maximum was on Thursday, May 26 when the update began. The next closest was June 1 at 8.1.
My traffic is down for Sunday, which is abnormal and no doubt part of the deck shuffle out there. I’m down around 50% so whatever you do will be fine. Before today, the days when traffic slipped was between 10 and 20%.
So we have the rest of this week to really do it and then the following week the dust settles. Hopefully we’ll find out more about where things end up over the weekend.
Seeing some significant changes for Sunday as well, in tune with the Semrush sensor.
This should be a critical week with the completion of the release, so the next few days should be very significant for those affected.
My last few days have been much quieter than usual with Sunday -50% normal weekend day, but so far this morning my traffic volume seems normal. your sources, your searches, etc. I was very surprised.
The switch was activated at 23:00 UK time last night.
My website traffic is increasing since the update, but is down -20% overall. All featured snippets have disappeared for the entire site. The website is still in the first place for most of these queries.
Traffic is skyrocketing today… first strong day since the 25th. Search is up 43% today, direct traffic is up too… English traffic is up from Canada. Let’s see if it lasts or if it’s just a touch…
I’m also seeing a slight increase in organic traffic, but it only started happening in the last 2-3 hours. It could still be anything.
Monday is down 33% almost everywhere for me and a quick comparative analysis of June 1-6 with January 1-May 31 shows:
Page views -35.4% Unique visitors -24.2% First time visitors -22.8% Returning visitors 32.2%
For me, June is traditionally a good month, as many bulk buyers are restocking for late summer and making sure they have the right balance of fall and winter—my gadgets aren’t impulse buys.
If traffic continues at this level, then I’ve been affected by “something” and, aside from a few big money keyword losses, it’s very hard to see exactly what, unless the worldwide disinterest in my widgets coincides with the update of G!
Here are some of the newer comments in this post:
I’m seeing signs of increased traffic to my (mostly) informational site. I don’t think it means anything, but I’m still hoping I can get some of my traffic back.
This update is really very strange, how is it possible for a whitehat website to experience a major drop in traffic even up to 90%. A lot of my keywords are missing and I’m afraid this is going to continue, this makes me quite depressed considering this is a hard work we have built over the last 3 years. I always said NO NO to pbn and the like because I thought that the white hat would bring better results and it would be long-term, but it disappeared in a few days, which is rare. I hope Google will take into account some of the input from friends and blog owners who have been trying it out over the past few years.
Although the update has been surprisingly good for me, the acceleration has been bad this week. Sometimes you think it’s the weather, as summer always brings a natural dip, but the impact of today’s traffic cannot be explained in any other way except at the end of a period of acceleration.
The same here. Over the last 4 days I have experienced a partial netting of fortunes, more traffic and conversions, but there is still a long way to go. SERPs still everywhere with abysmal organic results and sponsored content galore.
I hope the last 24 is some kind of bug as my high quality site is down and seeing a lot of junk news.
So yeah, it looks like this may be the last big shake for the May 2022 core update. I’m sure we’ll see more after Google confirms the update is done, but it will be hard to attribute to the core update.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.