It’s Time For Google’s May 2020 Algorithm Update

At the start of this week, it was confirmed by Google’s Danny Sullivan that a core algorithm update was being rolled out. The update is being officially known as the “May 2020 Core Update”.

This is the second Google update we have seen so far in 2020, with the first update long ago in January. This seemed to affect a lot of businesses and their rankings due to a few tweaks that Google made. While many people thought that Google wouldn’t bring out an update to its algorithm during this time of international crisis, they didn’t seem to have the same idea.

However, maybe it’s not a bad time to bring out a big update like this at the moment. I’ll go more in-depth on how you can use this to your advantage:

What is the purpose of the updates?

The core updates are planned to give noticeable effects to people from all over the world and who speak all languages. Whether these are positive or negative it will depend but it’s likely you’ll see a spike or drop in your search rankings. These changes in your rankings are going to most likely be a reflection of your content’s quality and relevance. Simply put, you’re going to want to make sure that your content is the best that it can be in order for the update to have the best benefits possible for your site. The current issue is that this update has the potential to be especially volatile since it is the first update since the pandemic.

Will COVID-19 affect the update?

Well, this isn’t completely clear however, Google made clear earlier this week that there have never been so many searches for one single topic in the entire history of Google. This has meant that there have been significant shifts in the users’ search behaviour. People are changing the way they browse Google and what they are looking for. With big increases in users searching for information about the virus itself, or places offering remote services, or people looking where they are able to buy their much-needed items online. It’s a time where we’re seeing some businesses thrive but others dropping off in the search results making it more difficult for businesses to gain traction. It’s meant that this update is going to have to keep up with the way that users have changed how and what they’re searching for.

How will it affect SEO efforts?

If this update ends up being as potent as it possibly could be, it might actually be a good thing for SEO. With a lot of companies reducing their marketing efforts, or laying off staff, or pausing services if you can afford to pay out for SEO at this moment it’s going to be especially valuable while the algorithm update is happening. This could mean that if you work in SEO then you could see a big increase in the demand for your work as businesses can’t afford to not be in the top 3. So when this is fully rolled out it will be interesting to see how many companies suddenly have the budget to hire SEO experts.

What can you do?

Well like Google always says there is nothing to “fix” if your rankings drop after an update. Instead, you should be doing your best to make sure the content that you are putting out is up to date and is relevant to where you’re trying to reach.