At the moment of writing, we’re five days into the Google August 2024 core update and this one seems to be the least talked-about Google update ever. Probably the biggest news so far is the ranking bug that Google announced – one that surprisingly hit at the same time the core update was launched:
Apart from a ranking bug, there has been little chatter in the blogging and/or SEO community, mostly meaning that nothing happened… so far.
Yes, I know, Google themselves (and then a plethora of people) will tell you that you have to wait for around 30 days for the update to run its course… but based on my experience, most of the effects are seen initially, with minor fixes afterwards.
But this time… nothing. Nobody seems to care, not even Google. I checked the Facebook page of the Mediavine group I’m in, where people usually discuss Core updates (unfortunately, most of them – myself included – complaining about ranking drops). This time – nothing.
No HCU recovery. No love shown to the small, independent publishers. Google results are still dominated by Reddit and big brands, and I haven’t seen any change in Google traffic since the update started. It’s just meh. They say that they are trying to put smaller publishers into the spotlight, but I don’t see it.
What I did see was this unexpected, but welcome spike in traffic for site #1 in my income reports:
I was happy to see the Google Core Update finally starting to reverse things, and I was ready to put on my party hat. But nope… it was just a spike in traffic from BING. Yup, Bing rocks for me nowadays, although I have no idea what caused that old article to spike. I will take it, the extra $$$ are more than welcome.
But Google’s search traffic? Still trickling down, showing no love to most of my websites.
And based on the chatter (or lack of it thereof) I would say that most people are not seeing anything yet. Maybe this one’s an update that does take more time to show its fangs (maybe it’s affected by that ranking bug that’s still not fixed at the moment of writing this piece).
Sure, there are two websites that are seeing massive upward swings in their traffic: House Fresh and Retro Dodo. If the names sound familiar, they are because they were very vocal since the HCU decimated their business models.
Well, they’re now getting some traffic back, although that’s clearly (at least for me) a manual action, and not the result of the algo. Maybe all of us should start making some noise to get noticed by Google? It’s sad to see that we ended up like this: a huge company that used to deliver great search results having to rely on manual action to either penalize or reward websites.
IMPORTANT: I am not saying that Retro Dodo or House Fresh don’t deserve the boost in traffic. I hope that they do get all the lost traffic back, because they are indeed producing high quality content and deserve it. But I just have to point out that, with billions of websites out there, manually managing them all for better/worse rankings is impossible and further proves that Google’s algo isn’t capable of doing its job.
What will happen next? More and more small bloggers and indie website owners will start doing other things, because blogging is dead right now for most.
I am starting to lose hope myself… but I am still on the fence about quitting. My biggest problem is that I love blogging and, even though I am no longer focusing on most of my websites (which, in all honesty, were of poor quality), I am seriously worried about further dips in traffic – especially since it is affecting those websites of mine that are genuine, based on expertise and which, again in all honesty, should be doing a lot better.
Maybe Google will be able to fix their algorithm to penalize those who deserve it and promote the ones that also deserve it, but it seems that the Google August 2024 core update isn’t it. I guess that we’ll get a new one right before November, so no small publisher will enjoy the increased earnings… and starting 2025 we’ll see even fewer “gurus” and “blogging experts” online, Youtube included (have you noticed how most of them simply vanished since August 2023?)
UPDATE: Found this Reddit thread where some people are seeing some effects: many of them negative, but also some positive recoveries. One user wrote: “Initial boost, now going down every day.” Another comments: “Organic rankings have seen a decline.” But there is a bit of hope too: “One of my sites has seen a massive boost,” writes one Reddit user, while another says: “It has been incredible for my sites and clients’”
I am still not seeing anything…
Over to you now: have you seen any movement following this latest Google update? Do you have any hopes in getting your traffic back? Let us all know by commenting down below!