Google: Core Update May 2022

On May 25th, the first core update of 2022 was announced by Google. The full rollout of the update will take about 2 weeks. In the following article we explain what a core update is and what the first effects of the update are.

What is a core update?

With a core update, Google improves the general ranking process. Essentially, a core update increases the relevance of the search results. This should make the search results more helpful and useful. The changes are necessary so that Google can keep up with the latest developments on the web and remain the market-leading search engine.

A core update doesn’t affect a specific website, but the update does affect the performance of some websites. Performance losses as well as performance increases can be the result of the core update.

First effects of the update

The first effects can already be felt 24 hours after the announcement.

semrush recorded strong fluctuations in the search result pages (SERPs for short) on the day after the announcement. The volatility was rated at 9.4, which is very high.

Also the Rank Risk Index tool measures the fluctuations of the SERPs. The discontinuation of the update is also clearly visible here.

These are only the first effects of the core update. Further effects and their causes can only be analyzed after the full rollout.