Image: Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Google announced on 5 October that it was rolling out the October 2023 core update. It comes just a day after it launched the October 2023 spam update, meaning the two are running at the same time.
Core updates are "significant, broad changes" made to Google's search algorithm, and they happen several times a year. There have been two core updates already in 2023, coming in August and March. The rollout may take up to two weeks to complete.
With the helpful content update just completing on 28 September, Google's updates are piling up thick and fast this autumn. With so many coming together it may be more tricky to identify which of the three updates has impacted your site.
As always, it's worth waiting for the update to complete and then a few days where there can still be volatility as the results settle before checking your rankings.
It may be that there is nothing specific to fix on your site, even if you have experienced a drop.
Google’s advice is to focus on providing the best content you can. It has compiled a list of content and quality questions to consider regarding any pages which were impacted, to check that your content is still on the right track.
**Update 21 Oct: The rollout completed on 19 October 2023.
