Google May 2022 Core Updates Continue, However We’re Probably At The End

Google’s May 2022 core update is now just about 13 days in, we expect Google to say the update is now rolling out sometime in the next 72 hours or so. But till then, it does seem like the tremors have continued, with big spikes on Sunday, June 5, 2022.

I was offline the from Friday evening through super late last night, so I am still playing catch up. But from what I can tell, there were some big tremors in the Google Search results on Sunday, June 5th. The SEO chatter and the Google tracking tools both picked up on it. This seems to be the tail-end of this May 2022 core update.

Google May 2022 Broad Core Update Quick Facts

As a reminder, here are the quick facts that we know about this core update:

• Name: Google May 2022 Broad Core Update
• Launched: May 25, 2022 at around 11:30pm ET
• Rollout: It will take about one to two weeks to roll out
• Targets: It looks at all types of content
• Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards great web pages
• Global: This is a global update impacting all regions, in all languages.
• Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update.
• Discover: Core updates impact Google Discover and other features, also feature snippets and more.
• Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google’s core update advice.
• Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. Maybe this is what we saw the past couple of weeks or all those unconfirmed Google updates.

We posted a lot of the stories from some SEOs about this core update over here. The comments on all these posts are tremendous, so check them out when you have time.

Google Tracking Tools Show Spike June 5th

Here is what we are seeing from the tools:

Mozcast:

Semrush:

RankRanger:

SERPmetrics:

Algoroo:

Advanced Web Rankings:

Cognitive SEO:

SERPstat:

Accuranker:

So you can see, most, not all, of the tools picked up a lot of volatility on or around June 5th – which is normal – we normally see tremors after a core update rolls out.

SEO Chatter Spikes ~June 5th

The folks at WebmasterWorld have been chattering a lot since the core update has been released. But there was a spike in that chatter about change around June 5th, starting as early as June 4th. Normally the SEO chatter comes before the tools pick up on the changes. Here is what we see with the chatter:

This weekend is shaping up to be a strong weekend which I am not accustomed to. Normally traffic trails off a bit from Friday afternoon through Saturday and picks up again after midday Sunday. Today is looking like what I would expect to see anytime within the midweek.

Saturday was right at the bottom end of a weekend average at 56.7% and after 14 hours of my G Sunday so far it is abnormally low plus looking at it on a weekly basis I am down 30%. I need to check again however it would appear the reduction is in my most popular keyword products having been demoted in the US SERPs.

News website in the finance niche: Didn’t notice much of a change last week (when this core update was announced), but since Friday the site is down 30% in traffic.
However, SERP didn’t get affected almost at all, still marinating high ranking for hot keywords, what makes me suspect the sharp drop is entitled to Google News and/or news articles mainly.
Over the past two years all the core updates were neutral or positive for us, however, this time it seems to be very bad until now.

My traffic has been blitzed…every day usa traffic starts at -50% to -70% from the norm. Canada is at zero most days and UK is significantly down, as is most traffic from Western Europe. Only Australia, E Europe and developing world is up…plenty of India, Paki, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Africa.

Semrush sensor is pegging out at a 9.0 today in volatility. Last time it was near this high was Thurs the 26th of May when the update began. The next nearest was June 1 at 8.1.

My traffic has fallen off for Sunday which is abnormal and no doubt part of the deck shuffling taking place out there. I am down by about 50% so whatever they are doing its going strong. Before today, the days where traffic did slip it was between 10 to 20%.

So we have the rest of this week to ride it out really and then the following week the dust settles. Hopefully we will know more about where things land by the weekend.

Seeing some significant changes for Sunday too, in tune with Semrush sensor.

This should be crunch week with the roll-out completition therefore the next few days should be very siginificant for those affected.

My last few days have been much quieter than usual with Sunday -50% v a normal weekend day however so far this morning my traffic volume is looking normal. its sources, its searches etc. I was very surprised.

The switch was flipped about 23.00 UK time for me last night.

My website traffic is rollercoasting since the update, but is down overall -20%. All featured snippets are gone for entire site. The website is still ranking at #1 spot for most of those queries.

Traffic has skyrocketed today…the first strong day since the 25th. Search is up 43% today, direct traffic also up…English language traffic up ex Canada. Let’s see if it lasts or if it’s just a blip…

I’m seeing a slight increase in organic traffic as well, but it only started happening in the last 2 to 3 hours. Still could be anything.

Monday was down 33% across nearly all sites for me and a quick comparison analysis of June 1-6 v Jan 1 to May 31 shows:

Page Views -35.4%
Unique Visitors -24.2%
First Time Visitors -22.8%
Returning Visitors 32.2%

For me June is traditionally a good month since many bulk buyers are topping-up stocks for late Summer and ensuring they have the right balance going into Autumn / Winter, my widgets are not impulse purchases.

If traffic continues at this level then I’ve been hit by “something” and apart from a few big money keyword losses its very difficult to see precisely what unless a worldwide disinterest in my widgets so happened to co-incide with G’s update!

Here are some of the newer comments in this post:

I’m seeing signs of a boost in traffic for my (mostly) informational site. I don’t think it means anything, but I’m still hopeful I can regain some of my traffic back.

This update is really very strange, how is it possible for a whitehat website to experience a significant decrease in traffic even up to 90%. Many of my keywords are missing and I’m afraid this will continue, this makes me quite depressed considering this is a hard work we have built over the last 3 years. I always said NO NO to pbn and the like because I thought that whitehat would bring better results and would be long term, but it went away in a few days, which is weird. I hope Google will take into account some of the input from friends and blog owners who have been trying in the last few years.

Although the update has been surprisingly good for me, the throttling has been bad this week. Sometimes you think it’s the weather, since summer always brings a natural slump, but the bump in traffic today can’t be explained any other way except through the end of a throttle period.

Same here. For the last 4 days I’ve experienced a partial offset of fortunes, more traffic and conversions but it’s still a long way to go. SERPs still all over the place with abysmal organic results and sponsored content galore.

Well hopefully last 24 is some kind of mistake, as my top quality site is down, and seeing a lot news spam up

More from the May broad core update. I’m seeing what looks like a BIG tremor on 6/5 that’s causing some sites to reverse. I’m digging into one case right now where the site was increasing nicely & tanked on 6/5. GSC data shows that drop (even bigger than visibility drops below). pic.twitter.com/aeZA50wxtI

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) June 7, 2022

So yea, seems like this may be the last big tremor for the May 2022 core update. I am sure we will see more after Google confirms the update is done rolling out but it will be hard to attribute to the core update.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.