August Update : Google algorithm update rolled out, Who was
impacted by this update? And how to rectify it?
impacted by this update? And how to rectify it?
Did you just hear about the August update? On the first of August, a grand Google search algorithm update rolled out and it’s named the Medic Core Update. According to Google, it’s a global, broad and core algorithm update which is based on a lot of analysis and there is ample focus on health and wellness vertical sites. But, again many other sites have been affected due to this update. Google stated that you cannot fix your website at any cost, therefore simply focus on creating a great experience, offer refined content and make the site more useful. The name of the update itself echoes that it’s mainly for the medical space.
Purpose of This Update
The Google Update on 1st August 2018 was a big hit and Google showed the ability to determine the E-A-T for a site. E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust. Google is mainly tried to filter those websites that are trustworthy for the audiences.
The ones impacted from the August update
August is healthy, August is nice but for some, it was not a great month. As it’s a global kind of update, websites belonging to every type and niche has been affected. Do you know what YMYL is? It’s Your Money Your Life and the pages here aim at life events and money. According to the guidelines of Google raters, they are defined as:
- Pages that ask for personal information which have chances of being used for identity theft.
- Pages used for different monetary transactions or pages that lets you purchase something online.
- Pages offering health and medical information.
- Pages that render advice on important life decisions like home, parenting etc.
- Pages that offer financial or legal advice and deal with life issues or your future happiness.
So, the majority of these sites either saw profit by a few points or suffered loss of few points. Mainly finance and health pages have been affected but the list extends to educational, e-commerce and also automotive websites. After an update is rolled out, it takes a couple of weeks to get a hit about the result. SEO experts have observed that the YMYL sites have definitely been affected but a lot of sites under niches nutrition, diet and medical device are heavily affected.
What to do if you are affected?
In case you are an affected YMYL site owner, you can do these things:
- Display all the E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust) – Design an ‘About Us’ page that contains various reasons why your business is the most authoritative. You can mention the awards and accolades won, rich experience, recognition from the press and more. The aim is to impress the audiences and Google using relevant and authentic information.
- Display the author – Each and every article in your website must have a listed author. The listing must again link to author bio that speaks about their skill, trustworthiness, and reliability.
- Uplift the reputation of your business – This can be done by getting press coverage but again Google can highly identify parts of the websites written by paid journalists versus staff journalists who are really uncovering the reports. Another way to improve the reputation is to foster user reviews across the internet, increase the testimonials and more. You can always get in touch with a website development companies in Bangalore that can help you in reputation management.
- Confirm that you are selling the best products – You cannot afford to sell a product that is spammy, sketchy or even harmful. If you do so, there would be so much negativity and ranking drops. In most of the niches, there is heavy competition and bad reviews can completely shut the doors of your online business. You must address the issue related to any real user leaving a negative review.
- Build product credibility – In case you are selling a product related to health, medical device or diet, make sure there is ample information on the internet about the product. Improve the product credibility and reliability by promoting reviews and generating discussions. Focus on creating a marvelous product so that people can’t stop praising it.
Final words
According to the experts, this Google algorithm update has affected the local results and the organic search results as well. The YMYL sites have been affected but it’s actually broader. Expert Barry Schwartz who coined the name Medic for the update says that a huge number of websites belonging to the medical niche has been affected but this update does not go outside the niche.
If you are running an online business, you cannot handle everything in-house. Hire the services of an expert website development company in Bangalore so that you get the best solution.
