It’s been a busy month in the world of SEO, with groundbreaking Google Core updates being released, quite different from their usual ones.

This blog is divided into two parts:

  • Improving Content Quality
  • Introducing Recommendations in Google Search Console

How is Google improving Content Quality?

By now, we’ve all heard about the much-anticipated Google August Core Update. This update is not like the usual ones; it is heavily focused on promoting better quality search results rather than content specifically crafted to perform well in search.

Google Search Advocate John Mueller said:

“Today, we launched our August 2024 core update to Google Search. This update is designed to continue our work to improve the quality of our search results by showing more content that people find genuinely useful and less content that feels like it was made just to perform well on Search.”

In the past, we’ve seen small or independent publishers disappear from top-ranking SERPs, even if their content was of high quality. This was deemed very unfair, especially as this content met a high user intent. Google has also addressed this:

“This latest update takes into account the feedback we’ve heard from some creators and others over the past few months.

As always, we aim to connect people with a range of high-quality sites, including ‘small’ or ‘independent’ sites that are creating useful, original content on relevant searches.

This is an area we’ll continue to address in future updates.”

It was highly positive to see Google actively attempting to make the SERP landscape as diverse as possible, offering a variety of resources for the user, regardless of the publisher’s size but based on the quality of the content.

This update has two key focus points: promoting high-quality, value-added content and reducing SEO-focused content with low content value.

What Should We Do in the Meantime?Introducing Recommendations in Google Search Console

Google has introduced a new experimental feature for Google Search Console. These are quick recommendations at a glance, based on the performance of the site, without the need to dive deep into each section of Search Console.

Google has highlighted the key areas that should be looked into.

What Are the Recommendations Centered Around?

Crawling: Browsing the website to understand what each page is about.

Indexing: Search engines visiting and analysing new and updated web pages before adding them to their database.

Serving: When a user searches for a specific query.

Moshe Samet, a Product Manager Lead at Google, wrote:

“They can help you prioritise your search optimisation efforts, such as using structured data to help Google understand your content, adding sitemaps, and checking out trending queries and pages.

The recommendations are computed on a regular basis and may expire or change details over time.”

The recommendations can be time-sensitive or differ in priority, so expect to see them change regularly.

Image copyright & credit: Google

Here is an example provided by Google: these recommendations are provided in the overview tab on the left-hand side.

These recommendations offer direct guidance, rather than requiring the user to sift through the data and create recommendations at their discretion. From here, the user can assess the recommendations, prioritise, and investigate further into why they have been highlighted.

As this is just an experimental feature for now, it will be interesting to evaluate what users think, and this will likely have a positive impact on the effectiveness of using Google Search Console.

At ALT Agency, we stay ahead of the curve by constantly updating our strategies with the latest SEO developments.

To discover how we can enhance your online visibility, visit our SEO services page and learn more about our tailored solutions, or give us a call on 0121 663 0202.