As you know, Google released its Google August 2024 core update on Thursday, August 15th, followed shortly after by a large search ranking bug hours later. SEOs and site owners are asking how we can differentiate between the two. Google’s John Mueller explained that you should not fully judge the effect of the current core update until it is fully done rolling out.
Now, while many are currently accessing the impact of the August 2024 core update, I see many seeing a lot of bouncing up and down. Many are indeed asking was it the ranking bug or the core update. I do tell them, while the ranking bug was fully fixed yesterday, you need to give it more time to see how things land. I would give it through this week to really see what is going on.
Yes, I know the core update is suppose to rollout over the next few more weeks – Google said the rollout will take about a month. But with the ranking bug that just ended, you really need to give the data another week or so, at least, to see if you were impacted by the core update or the ranking bug or both. And yes, things with the core update may still change at the tailend of the rollout and everything may flip.
So John Mueller from Google is not wrong when he said on LinkedIn this morning, “You’d really need to wait until the core update finishes rolling out to make any call about its effect.”
He added that this does not mean wait to improve your site, “That’s not to say you should wait with working on your website,” he wrote. “It’s just if you want to compare before vs after, waiting for it to be finished is important,” John added.
Then he quoted a bunch of what he is seeing from SEOs on social, “From looking at social posts from SEOs tracking these things, there are often fluctuations during the rollout, I don’t think it’s worth trying to separate out the effects from the ranking issue.”
Later on in the comments he said “Most sites don’t see big changes,” with these core updates. Yes, those here are probably seeing a lot of big changes and yes, if a site is hit, they see massive changes. But most sites on the web are likely not impacted in a big way by this update, he said.
So hang on, the ranking bug does confuse things but you can always compare the week or two prior to the core update being released to the week or two after the core update completed. I know everyone is anxious and for those who are, at least wait until next week to compare.
Here is a screenshot of John’s post on LinkedIn:
