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August 2024 Core Update

August 15, 2024 Confirmed
« All Google Updates

Google released the August 2024 Core Update on August 15, 2024. It was completed 19 days later, on September 3, 2024. 

Google Search Status Dashboard announcing the August 2024 Core Update

However, Google also experienced an unrelated ranking issue on August 15, 2024, the same day it released the August 2024 Core Update. The ranking issue was resolved on August 20, 2024. 

Google’s Official Announcement

Google announced the August 2024 Core Update in a post on X (formerly Twitter). In the post, Google mentioned that the update aims to prioritize helpful content while reducing the visibility of content designed solely to rank in search results.

In addition to X, Google also announced the update in a post on LinkedIn and on its own official blog. In the blog post, Google mentioned that it took the feedback it had received from other creators over the past few months into account when it created this update. 

What Are People Saying?

Barry Schwartz commented about the update on X (formerly Twitter). Curiously, he had previously posted about the volatility he detected on Google search results pages a day before Google released the August 2024 Core Update.  

Glenn Gabe provided more insights into the update on X. He mentioned that many sites affected by the September 2023 Helpful Content Update, famously codenamed HCU(X), had started to recover. And some of the sites began recovering a day before the August 2024 Core Update was released.

Gabe also mentioned that many sites earned or lost traffic to the August 2024 Core Update. However, the loss or gains were quickly reversed. He speculated that this could be the result of a bug. 

The bug Gabe referred to is the same ranking issue that lasted from August 15 to 20, 2024. Google said it was unrelated to the core update. 

That said, other SEOs also observed several sites recovering with this core update. For example, Lily Ray shared a report about a site slowly recovering after losing traffic to the Helpful Content Update.

Lily also shared analytic reports of another site that recovered by 590%. While this is nothing compared to its rankings before the Helpful Content Update, it is impressive, considering that it recovered that much traffic within a day.

Lily also shared analytic reports of another site that recovered 2800% of their traffic within two days. Like other sites, its traffic reduced after the Helpful Content Update before flatlining after the March 2024 Core Update.

Brandon Saltalamacchia, the founder of Retro Dodo, one of the sites affected by the Helpful Content Update, noted that they are slowly recovering with this update. However, the recovery is insignificant compared to the traffic they previously received from Google results pages. He speculated that Retro Dodo’s traffic loss would remain down for a while. 

Gisele Navarro, the managing editor of House Fresh, which also lost traffic to the September 2023 Helpful Content Update, confirmed that they were receiving traffic to some pages that previously ranked high on Google results pages. He added that other small sites in their space were also slowly recovering.

However, while some sites were slowly recovering, others were losing traffic. For example, Lily Ray shared analytics reports of a site that lost huge traffic to the August 2024 Core Update despite ranking in the number one spot for a highly competitive keyword two weeks earlier.

Interestingly, while some sites reported massive traffic loss or slight recoveries, Reddit saw its traffic increase by 300 Sistrix visibility points. This pales in comparison to the sites recovering from the Helpful Content Update, which typically saw their traffic increase by .5 to 2 points.

 

Nevertheless, it is noteworthy to know that this is the first time sites have been observed recovering from the Helpful Content Update.

 

Barry Schwartz provided more insights after the August 2024 Core Update was completed on September 3, 2024. He mentioned that the update had mixed results. While a few sites completely recovered with this update, several others partly recovered, and most did not even see any improvement at all. Some even lost more traffic.

On September 4, 2024, Glenn Gabe replied to Barry’s post and noted that some sites were still gaining and losing traffic despite the update being completed.

Previous Core Updates

The August 2024 Core Update is one of the core updates we have reported since 2021. Below are details of the other core updates we have previously documented. 

What’s Next – Dealing With This Update

While a minority of bloggers gained traffic to the August 2024 Core Update, others lost traffic, and many more did not see any changes. However, there are concerns that sites that saw little to no changes in their traffic situation may have been affected by some other update other than the September 2024 Core Update, which is also known as the Helpful Content Update or HCU(X).

In the meantime, you should begin monitoring your traffic with Rank Math Analytics. If you lost traffic to this update, you should refer to the video below on recovering from a Google algorithm update. 

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