09/12/2021
Google's July 2021 Core Update is over and the search marketing community experiences it differently depending on strategy
Roger Montti
Google’s July 2021 Core Algorithm update is now fully rolled out. Any subsequent changes you’ll see in rankings will probably be due to the normal shifting of search results.
The announcement was made by Google Search Liaison this afternoon.
This generally means that the new search index has fully rolled out to all the data centers and that the search results should remain relatively settled.
If you lost rankings it’s probably safe to no longer expect a last minute reprieve, it’s time to get to work understanding what happened.
Background of the July 2021 Core Algorithm Update
Google rarely says what is involved in the core algorithm update. But Google has said that a core algorithm update is one that introduces changes across a wide range of the indexing and ranking processes.
Earlier this year Google announced that it was fighting spam with a new anti-spam AI, so it’s not far fetched to speculate that Google may have introduced more efficient spam fighting features that allow it to perform the task at a faster pace.
Less ccTLD Domain Crowding in Search Results?
Domain crowding is when the same domain ranks repeatedly in the search results.
For some search results sites with multiple country code top level domains (CCTLDs) like .uk, .tv, .ca domains tended to dominate Google’s search results.
Lily Ray noticed that Pinterest ccTLDs lost visibility after Google’s July Core Algorithm Update.
She tweeted:
“Here are the different Pinterest ccTLDs, which saw huge visibility increases in the U.S. throughout 2020. Those sites are taking a nosedive right now.
July 2021 Update Speculation and Anecdotal Observations
Quality Links
A common observation I’m seeing in many Facebook groups is that solid on-page and off-page SEO practices are paying off with stable rankings.
Steven Kang (), founder of the popular SEO Signals Lab Facebook group said that he has seen minimal changes from the recent updates and credited avoiding things like low quality links.
Steven shared:
“I’m not noticing much. Very little fluctuations even for high search volume keywords.
I have a client ranking for 300k monthly search volume. It’s fluctuating between 1st and 2nd. Even for 10k+ keywords for other clients.
Then again, I don’t do low quality links.
WebmasterWorld Update Discussion
Publishers and SEOs in the WebmasterWorld forum speculated on a wide range of things that may have changed. Although this kind of discussion can be unreliable sometimes what people are talking about lines up with what is going on.
One of things they’re talking about is an increase in People Also Ask (PAA), a query refinement feature designed to get users to the answers they want to see.
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Another observation of interest is in there being similarities in the ranking losses in images and the regular organic search engine results pages (SERPs).
One forum member observed:
“What I found interesting is that the losses in image search mirrored the losses in web search despite being separated by a week, and being different search systems.”
Low Quality Sites in the Search Results?
There is also anecdotal evidence of a seeming increase in spam in Google’s search results since the recent spam updates that is persisting through the July 2021 Core Algorithm Update.
Although Google is actively trying not to show low quality search results, arguably questionable search results continue to show up in Google.
For example, this is a screenshot of Google’s search results for Instagram Account Hacked, taken on July 7th shortly after a Google spam update.
Google’s algorithm ranks this at position two, you be the judge if you agree that this is a great search result.
Search Results for Instagram Account Hacked
PDF Ranked Above Search Engine JournalThis is a screenshot of the PDF file that is ranking in Google:
Screenshot of Top Ranked PDF
Top Ranked PDF
Now that Google’s July Core Algorithm Update is over that same PDF continues to rank in position 9.
PDF Still Ranking After Google July 2021 Core Update
PDF in Search Results
Search Community Notices Low Quality Sites
One person remarked on how bad some search results in Italy were:
Scraper Spam in Search Results
There are also spam pages generated from scraping Google’s featured snippets that are ranking number one.
I was shown dozens of examples of multiple sites that were scraping Google’s featured snippets and combining that from other scraped websites to create new web pages and ranking in the number one position, outranking the legitimate websites from which the content was scraped from.
art of what is helping these sites rank is having obtained links from quality websites that don’t appear to be selling links (but maybe they are).
Soure: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-july-2021-core-algorithm-update/413204/
Many of these scraper sites didn’t exist prior to November 2020 and others appeared in January 2021, all of them with tens of thousands of pages of scraped content.
I verified the information that was shared with me.
