Google’s August 2024 Core Update Is Complete

While the final results of the update are still unclear, I’ve gathered the initial reactions and analysis from professionals in the field:

Aleyda Solis on X:

Glenn Gabe on X, just hours before the core update was announced as completed:

“Good Morning Google Land! This is the September 3rd edition of “Core Update Notes”. Many people have been interested in September HCU(X) sites rising from the ashes, which I totally get. As of this morning, 91 sites out of the 390+ I’m tracking that were heavily impacted by the Sep HCU(X) have improved since the Aug core update started rolling out (some surging heavily while others increasing, but still with a very long way to go).

But, there’s the other side of the coin… There are 57 sites that have dropped more than 25% since the August core update began. And these were sites already heavily down based on the Sep HCU(X) and March 2024 core update. Like I’ve said for a long time, not all HCU(X) sites would recover with the Aug core update. I have not analyzed all of these sites, so it’s hard to say how many worked to improve. Here are some examples of sites dropping more with the Aug core update. Tough to see for these sites, but again, I don’t know how much work was done since the Sep HCU(X) for a number of them.”

Barry Schwartz for Search Engine Roundtable:

“Did We See Improvements? […] Well, we did for the time since the September 2023 helpful content update see some sites move up and see ranking improvements. We actually saw small adjustments early on and while some of those vanished, some continued to surge on.

Overall, it seemed like most sites were worse off, at least, from an SEO perspective. The poll results showed:

• 44% had rankings/traffic drops
• 27% had rankings/traffic increases
• 29% had no change

And while some sites saw improvements after being hit by the helpful content update, most did not. Of those that did, only some saw really big improvements, like full recoveries, but most of those saw minimal gains compared to their positions prior to the September helpful content update.”

Steve Paine published data sets on Sistrix showing the final winning and losing domains:

“Winners and losers of the August Core Update: Here are the final lists of the biggest winners and losers during the August 2024 Google Core Update starting with the percentage winners.”

By now, you should have already seen a change in your site traffic. However, John Mueller advised that it’s normal to see fluctuation throughout the rollout, and advised that “you’d really need to wait until the core update finishes rolling out to make any call about its effect.”

Google has also updated its help page about core updates and are advising “waiting at least a full week after a core update completes before analyzing your site in Search Console.”

So while the dust settles, sites should continue to focus on creating helpful content that prioritizes their audiences’ needs over solely driven by SEO.