Google Launches October 2023 Core Update-SEO

Google released a core update that makes broad changes to its search algorithms and systems to help improve the reliability of search results.

Highlights

• Google launches the October 2023 Core Update.
• The update can take up to two weeks to complete.
• It aims to improve search results by making them more helpful and reliable for searchers.

Google released the October 2023 Core Update and it is expected to take two weeks to roll out. The core algorithm update makes significant changes to Google’s search algorithms and ranking systems to help deliver on its mission to present helpful and reliable results for searchers.

This is the third broad core algorithm update for Google Search in 2023. The first core update of 2023 was released in March 2023 and completed in the same month. The second core update was launched in August 2023 and completed in early September 2023. See a historical list of Google algorithm updates here.

The Google October 2023 Core Update was announced on X and the Google Search Status Dashboard on October 5, 2023.

The Google October 2023 Core Update is running concurrently with the October 2023 Spam Update that was announced on October 4, 2023, as reported here: Google Releases October 2023 Spam Update. The Spam Update improves the spam detection system coverage in many languages and spam types while the Core Update focuses on improving how Google’s algorithms and systems assess content overall.

As Google states here in its Search Central documentation on Core Updates: “There’s nothing wrong with pages that may not be performing as well as they were before a core update. They haven’t violated our spam policies, nor been subjected to a manual or algorithmic action, as can happen to pages that do violate those policies. In fact, there’s nothing in a core update that targets specific pages or sites. Instead, the changes are about improving how our systems assess content overall. These changes may cause some pages that were previously under-rewarded to do better in search results.”

If your site is negatively impacted by the October 2023 Core Update, Google offers a list of questions to help self-assess the content during a site audit. Evaluating the content against these questions can help you gauge if the content is helpful and reliable for searches, provides a great user experience, and demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T); signals that Google’s search algorithms and ranking systems take into consideration when ranking search results.

Summary

Google launched the October 2023 Core Update which will make broad changes to its search algorithms and systems to help improve the reliability of search results. The update will take up to two weeks to complete.

Stephen Hockman is an entrepreneur and founder of SEO Chatter. He specializes in search engine optimization and digital marketing and has been fascinated with SEO since 2005. His goal is to share the best tips and news about search engine marketing to help you get more website traffic.