It is probably a bit too early to make any definitive statements but so far what I am seeing from the community is that this June 2019 core update – a Google search algorithm update – that was pre-announced and rolled out on June 3rd – it is a big one. Not only is it a big one but it is not done rolling out yet.
It Was Big – Google Said So
Why do I think it was big? Well, firstly Google said so. Danny Sullivan from Google said the only reason they are talking about it is because it is going to be “definitely noticeable” and thus want to talk about it:
Thatβs about updates in general. The quote suggested I said that about core updates. Those are definitely noticable. That’s why we confirm them.
β Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) June 4, 2019
Lots Of Chatter
The second reason is because I am seeing a ton of chatter within the community. Some of that chatter is just normal SEO fights but some show really early signs of major changes for many sites previously hit by core updates. Some saw massive recoveries, at least they say, while others are seeing being hit again. There is also a lot of chatter amongst those impacted by the Medic update but again, this is super early.
Here is some of the chatter from WebmasterWorld, Black Hat World, the comments here and Twitter. I tried to filter out the chatter that is not specific to people noticing changes, the day after it started rolling out.
I still observe the 25% traffic increase I mentioned yesterday.
I noticed an increase in traffic almost instantly after the update, which continued until around 8am BST, but back down since then. Hoping the early increases will return and it’s just a case of Google rolling it out across all data centers…
I got a 70% increase in organic traffic instantly, checked Google analytics and realized the 70% boost was all coming from only desktop. Now it’s back down to zero over here at the exact same time the update started yesterday.
I’m seeing a lot of movement now. For lots of keywords, one minute I’m on page 1, then page 3, and back again.
I’m even more nervous this time because I’m also out of work as of yesterday. Nice timing Google! lol
Initial trends are in for us : we are -10% down and will probably slide that way with every push of this update to their various DCs . I do not expect anything positive throughout the week either coz the initial trend mostly says where your site is heading for the final settlement .
Yes im seeing jumping round also, not as severe as P1 to P3 but on page 1 Im seeing my results moving around both up and down.
Yeah seeing some significant changes in UK Financial Services on Google. Lots of big changes for some big websites on this topic actually.
Yes, but not a huge change. Maybe +5% difference so far. I agree that mobile traffic is finicky and doesn’t convert as well as desktop. I’ll take more desktop visitors any day for my niche.
Traffic drop 60% some keywords which were ranking on 1,2,3 position are now on 3rd page it seems like a penalty even though not made a single Blackhat thing.
But some which were ranking on position 40-70 are now on 10-20 so it seems like no penalty.
Up to 50% drop. Semrush report says some keywords are now out of top 50 from 1, 2, 3rd positions.
Looks like the end of the road, it’s not possible to recover from this damage
so after a full day today I can see that things dont look good. Traffic amount not changed but conversions wise terrible. Hope tomorrow is better – as if things say like this I wont survive it.
The below shows a 41% drop on the day before.
First day is like 20% loss, but it’s first day. Let’s wait a full week.
Seeing drop of 25% organic traffic, my website is related to the health industry…..
One of my websites is getting 89% of traffic from the Philippines the past 3 days
Another is so far showing – 73% loss in search – when searching for main phrases I see Quora above me everywhere
We lose roughly 40% of our traffic since May 4. The decline in our traffic started at around 9:00am – 10:00am (GMT+1) and since then it has stayed that way. We weren’t affected by the March update but instead experience a 30% increase in organic traffic. Now its all gone. We don’t even know what to do, we are just looking and hoping things will recover. It’s beyond comprehension how these changes can impact ones life.
After great traffic increase since yesterday, the update did the thing and my traffic decreased -9% for one website and about -20% for another one… Hope that this is not the end… and the things will get better after it will roll out fully… I was so happy in the morning and now I’m sad again… So many work done and such a “great” result… Thanks.
Well finally some Google update which didnβt negative affected me.
My traffic increased like 20-30% and some of my sites moved front in SERPs.
I noticed some positive results so far and the traffic was increased by 15%.
My organic traffic has dropped. I get about 5k-7k daily. But now I struggle to have 2k. Yesterday pageviews was around 3.5k.
A site of mine tanked from top 10 results to positions 90+ for every keyword from the march 2019 update. Then on June 3 rankings snapped back to normal. I was literally going to abandon the site. Not now π
β Stephen Hockman (@StephenHockman) June 5, 2019
Core update cont’d: As an example of hourly trending, you can see this site started dropping at 4PM on 6/3. Always interesting to see the hourly impact from a broad core update like this. More to come as I dig deeper. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/STiHIixVEw
β Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) June 5, 2019
Analytics Screen Shots
Here are some more screen shots of people’ dropping in the past day or so:
Data Providers
Some early data from the tool providers show it was big:
The first data-set is in. Remember this is just day 1 of the Google Core Update and already we’re seeing significant movement. UK news media, for example, should be on alert. https://t.co/jS543CwGLs pic.twitter.com/Wsw7oR0m1J
β sistrix (@sistrix) June 5, 2019
Here’s our initial data on the June 2019 #CoreUpdate (things are still moving, so this is a 1st look)!
The Gambling niche was hit hard as were the Health & Finance niches (though the update was/is impactful across the board).
It is still early, so keep that in mind!#SEO pic.twitter.com/nwHpiCjtzc
β Rank Ranger (@RankRanger) June 5, 2019
Day-over-day flux was fairly high (93.4Β°), but we’ve had 22 days in 2019 at or over that temperature.
β Dr. Pete Meyers (@dr_pete) June 4, 2019
Tracking Tools
The tools, to be honest, are still not that incredibly strong. I’ll share those screen shots below:
It’s Not Done
It can take more time to roll out – in fact, Gary Illyes said for this to fully roll out it can take “between 1 day and a couple weeks, depending on factors like data center health, network congestion and quality.”
That’s utterly hard to estimate. Out can go anywhere between 1 day and a couple weeks, depending on factors like data center health, network congestion and quality, etc
β Gary “ι―¨η” Illyes (@methode) June 5, 2019
More Time To Analyze
I think we still need to give it about a week to take a deeper dive into this update. But it will probably be more of the same like we saw with the previous core updates, including the medic update. So we will look into industries hit, types of sites, types of tactics, etc. But I believe it will be similar to previous core updates.
What do you think?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, Black Hat World, and Twitter.