- Google Core Algorithm Updates are to SEO, what space is to a hitchhiker. And to take a quote from Douglas Adams in his guide for hitchhikers, and adjust it to our context, it would read:
“A Google Core Algorithm Update is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to a Google Core Algorithm Update.”
And had Douglas been writing about SEO instead of guides for people who cannot afford their own spaceships, he would not have been overstating things with this quote.
Which brings us to the purpose of this article.
If Google Core Algorithm Updates are so mindbogglingly big, certainly we must prepare for them.
Before we get to that, however, let’s make sure we are all on the same page as to what Google Core Algorithm Updates actually are.
What Is A Google Core Algorithm Update?
Also referred to as a Broad Core Algorithm Update, we will just refer to them as Core Updates for brevity through the remainder of this article.
A Core Update is an update to the fundamental building blocks of a search engine.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s start with one.
At an incredibly simplistic scale, one can think of the Core fitting into the overall algorithms like:
Again, this is a brutally simplistic model, but what I am trying to illustrate is that there are a variety of different algorithms that manage, interpret, and output various functions and signals. And then there is “the Core.”
If we think about the huge array of different algorithms involved with processing the signals used to rank a page (and to judge one page against another, determine which elements should exist on a specific SERP, etc.) it is simple to see how “Backlinks” are not all lumped together as one metric as illustrated above, but rather assessed on a variety of characteristics, each with different signals, metrics and likely algorithms of their own.
And further, backlinks blend with trust, which has a variety of signals and algorithms unto itself.
The Core, too, will be divided into multiple different algorithms and functions but with one big purpose — to control the rest.
A Different Way to Look at It
As nerdy as it may sound, I find it helpful to think of it, like The Borg of Star Trek fame. And it turns out, that is for a good reason.
For the poor souls unfamiliar, the Borg Collective is a species that consists of individual drones who are connected and controlled by an overall system, running around keeping the Borg Cubes (their ships) operating and conquering more species. And then there is the Queen (The Core in our scenario) that controls and coordinates it all. This is done automatically and over vast distances using communications systems built into each drone, and their Cubes.
Basically, one queen to see over all the parts and keep them working in unison. Like an ant colony. Like Google’s Core.
Fun Google / Borg Fact
I noted above that this association is for good reason. Google actually has a system for large-scale cluster management called —you guessed it — Borg. It, “… runs hundreds of thousands of jobs, from many thousands of different applications, across a number of clusters each with up to tens of thousands of machines.”
On top of that, some of the folks from Google left and entered the microservices space and built technology for connecting different services into one cohesive application. They code-named this system “Project 7” after the famed Star Trek Borg character “7 of 9” in development, and while I don’t know for sure, I suspect I know why the name of this product now (Kubernetes) starts with “Kube”.
Optimizing for Google (Not the User)
The reason we have journeyed as we have is that I have always felt it important to understand not just how to optimize, but what you are optimizing for. And no, it is not the user. It is Google.
And before a bunch of SEOs jump down my throat with quotes from John Mueller and even my own past comments on optimizing for users being a path to ranking better, what I mean is that our job as SEOs is to rank well and that means optimizing for Google.
THEIR job is to optimize for users.
So yes, indirectly, we are optimizing for users, and that is important to remember, especially in the context of Core Updates lately, but the semantics matter. Never take your eye off the ball or forget what your role is.
Back to What A Core Update Is and Consists Of
We can hardly talk about preparing your site for a core update without first exploring what they are, now that we know how the Core differs from other algorithms and functions.
A Core Update is, in essence, the updating of the foundation of the system itself, but not necessarily all or even many of the individual components.
Areas that may be upgraded include but are definitely not limited to:
