By On Thursday November 2nd, 2023 Google released the fifth Core Update of 2023 also known as a “Broad Core Update”. This is the ninth major announced search algorithm update according to Google this year.
Core updates like this one generally take a few weeks to roll out completely but your site may see an impact at any point during the update, early reports are showing this update is more volatile than most core updates. Google’s standard guidance is that it will update over a 2 week period, but it is possible it takes a few days or even a week or so longer to finish rolling out. The August 2023 Core Update took 16 days & 3 hours to complete and two Core Updates in 2022 took 15 days to complete.
Google’s verbiage around this core update, as well as our take on these types of updates for their search engine, is still unchanged from previous “broad core” updates. I recommend thinking about this update and others like it as a refresh of the data Google’s algorithm uses to determine quality and rankings across millions of keywords and how it assess your content overall.
One new thing that has come to light is that we now know that these updates are often for different “core” parts of the algorithm from other updates. For example if PageRank is considered a core part of the algorithm then it might be included in one update where as Page Experience might be updated in a different core update. SEOs have speculated for sometime that later versions of these updates might reverse a recent version, this is still likely, however, it may be more than the newer update made an algorithm adjustment for something else which benefited the website and made it appear to reverse the earlier losses.
Here is everything we know about the Google Search November 2023 Core Update
November 2023 Core Update Vitals
- Date Started: November 2nd, 2023 (USA)
- Date Completed: November 28th, 2023 (12-days passed the estimated November 16th, 2023)
- First Impact Reported: Unknown
- Most Impacted Industry(ies): Unknown
- Most Impacted Site(s): Unknown
- Most Impacted Website Types: Unknown
- Most Impacted Content Types: Unknown
- SEO Change Proven to Improve: Unknown
First major impact reported:
No impact reported yet
November 2023 Core Update Facts
- Fifth core update of 2023.
- Released during the start of Christmas shopping season.
- Released immediately after an article in “The Verge” which blamed SEOs for ruining the internet and also blamed Google for poor quality results.
- Update is NOT site-specific, same as all other known Core Updates.
- This core update may take up to 2 weeks to fully roll out and impact websites.
- Not all websites or documents will get a ranking increase or decrease from this update.
Media Coverage of Google’s November 2023 Core Update
- Search Engine Roundtable – Google November 2023 Core Update Is Super Volatile & Super Fast
Transparency Report
We add this section when an update may have impacted our clients or our portfolio of websites. Below you’ll find positive and negative impacts to client websites / our websites if those impacts were deemed statistically significant AND if we believe we understand one or more of the reasons behind the adjustment.
No impact yet
Google November 2023 Core Update Help
- If you noticed a spike or drop in traffic starting on Thursday November 2nd or Friday November 3rd, don’t get upset or celebrate just yet. Rankings may fluctuate more than normal during a Core update and data from the Core update might impact other parts of Google’s ranking algorithm such as the Helpful Content classifier
- Do not panic. I know that sounds easy to say, but panic caused by a Google core update rarely solves problems with rankings. If you see a drop planning ahead is prudent, but stay cool and plot out the potential end date for the this to stop rolling out before taking any drastic action.
- If this core update adversely impacts your ecommerce traffic to your PLPs or PDPs consider using other forms of marketing / advertising to boost that traffic back up as it is unlikely this will reverse in a short period of time for your Christmas / Winter holiday sales season.
- If your negative impact is directly affecting informational content you may want to compare your content to the new top ranking document for those keywords. Review the intent of both documents, look for missing elements in your content, and do entity analysis to see if you can find ways to improve your content for the next update.
- Read Google’s guidance on Core Updates from their website here: What webmasters should know about Google’s core updates
- Hire an awesome SEO agency either one in your local area or one talented at finding and fixing issues related to Google and other search engine algorithm updates *hint* you are reading our website *hint*.