On May 4, Monday, Google’s Danny Sullivan confirmed that they are rolling out a new core update – “the May 2020 core update”. This is the major second core update of the year 2020, and the first one was the January 2020 core update focusing on featured snippets.
According to Sullivan, the update will be officially known as “The May 2020 Core Update.”
Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the May 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog post for more about that:https://t.co/e5ZQUAlt0G
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 4, 2020
Each time Google releases a new algorithm update, it’s moving a significant step forward in making the search experience more comfortable and relevant to the users. However, as SEO professionals in the industry, we may get entangled with questions from the clients on why the new update caused all the fluctuations in their rankings.
First Core Update After COVID-19 Pandemic
This year’s first core update was launched in the earliest weeks of January 2020. At that time, COVID-19 was hardly on anyone’s radar. Now that couldn’t be far from the truth.
When the COVID-19, aka coronavirus 2019, was declared as a global pandemic, it affected the world in a way that we are not familiarized with, and this resulted in a significant shift in user’s search behavior. Someday before Google also declared that there have never been many searches for a single keyword or topic as there have been for “COVID-19.”
Google Search has never seen as many searches for a single topic continue over a sustained period as is happening now with COVID-19. Many searches are for news about what’s happening in local areas, such as sheltering updates or the latest on testing. Here’s how we’re helping….
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 4, 2020
The pandemic has changed how people search and what they need from Google’s search results. The searches varied from people seeking further information about the virus or where to buy much-needed products online or places and services that offer help in this situation.
It seems like some searches and results have more relevance in the past few weeks, which weren’t as much as relevant before.
As the COVID-19 outbreak goes global, a lot of people around the world were curious to find out more details about it. As a result, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Google have joined hands to create a new SOS alert for all COVID-19 searches on the search engine’s platform. And reversely, some search results that were relevant once aren’t being searched for as much. For example, to name a few – searches related to live entertainment, travel, and tourism, and other events are all down.
With this new core update, Google is faced with the challenge of catching up with how the world is changing during this pandemic. Over time, we will see if users are finding it easier to access the information they needed through SERP results.
May 2020 Core Update: What You Can Do to Keep Up With This New Update?
Again, nothing. Google’s guidance regarding this new update also remains the same as all the previous core updates. After each core update, some may win by jumping to the top of SERP, and some may lose significant ranking of the site. And Google has always said there’s nothing new to fix if your rankings have dropped after each core update.
So, don’t be surprised if you lose your rank after this May 2020 core update.
Pay attention to your site’s ranking over the next few weeks, and once it is observed what this new update has brought this time, you can work around your rankings based on this.
