The search engine Google works in mysterious ways. But what is certain, its algorithms will continue to change to meet the everchanging trends and demands.
And it's because of those changes that many webmasters are left restless. They know that their sites won't forever be the champions. For others, they too know that as long as they work hard, their sites' rank will eventually improve.
A few times each and every year, Google releases core algorithms changes. Google Search's algorithms are the ones that power Google's search engine. They are the ones that affect how the search engine functions. Here, core updates can affect how the search engine ranks websites and determine which of their web pages to show up in response to users' queries.
Unlike minor algorithms updates, core algorithms change will affect websites.
Following core algorithms updates, most if not all webmasters and web owners will either benefit from the update, or suffer.
The more dependent their sites are with Google for traffic and/or monetization, the more the gain or pain they will experience after core updates.
Read: How Google Search Works, And How It Can Show You The Things You Want
While the majority of webmasters and web owners who benefit from core algorithms change would rather stay quiet, or at least share a glimpse of what they have done to survive the change, less fortunate webmasters that see their sites' rank plummet tend to go to dedicated forums and Q&A sites, willingly share their experience with others, and ask for solutions.
They know that they aren't the only ones affected by this. Each and on every core updates, these online discussion places are flooded with displeased and annoyed webmasters for more than too often.
For those people who have their sites affected in the bad way, Google suggests them not to panic.
Google says that websites can actually recover from core updates without having to wait for the next core update.
First and foremost, Google said a developer blog post that “broad core updates tend to happen every few months.” The company added that as long as webmasters don't violate its webmaster guidelines nor been subjected to a manual or algorithmic actions, "there's nothing wrong with pages that may perform less well in a core update."
"In fact, there's nothing in a core update that targets specific pages or sites. Instead, the changes are about improving how our systems assess content overall. These changes may cause some pages that were previously under-rewarded to do better."
Google also said that "content that was impacted by one might not recover - assuming improvements have been made - until the next broad core update is released."
"However, we're constantly making updates to our search algorithms, including smaller core updates. We don't announce all of these because they're generally not widely noticeable. Still, when released, they can cause content to recover if improvements warrant."
In other words, Google makes small changes to its algorithms more frequently than releasing major core updates. Websites that were affected by core algorithms change can improve their ranks when the smaller algorithms updates are released by Google.
Second, John Mueller from Google said that “it’s not something that requires a site to kind of wait for the next update to have a chance to be seen differently. They can continue working on things and things can improve over time.”
Mueller added that it is “possible that our next core update will make a bigger change in the same direction that you’ve been working, and you’ll see a bigger change in your site’s performance as well.”
“But in general, sites don’t have to wait for the next bigger update in order to start seeing changes. So from that point of view, I wouldn’t just, like, stop working on things once you think you’ve done the right thing, but I’d continue working in that direction. You should see at least some incremental improvements over time there,” he said.
In other words, even when changes must happen, webmasters and web owners who have their sites affected in a bad way by core updates don't have to wait for a Google core update to see a full recovery.
And again, Google also admitted that its algorithms aren't perfect, saying that "no improvement we make to Search is perfect."
"This is why we keep updating. We take in more feedback, do more testing and keep working to improve our ranking systems. This work on our end can mean that content might recover in the future, even if a content owner makes no changes. In such situations, our continued improvements might assess such content more favorably."
Further reading: How Search Engines Process Your Queries Determines Your Satisfaction