Posted by Dr-Pete On May 4, Google announced that they were rolling out a new Core Update. By May 7, it appeared that the dust had mostly settled. Here’s an 11-day view from MozCast: We measured relatively high volatility from May 4-6, with a peak of 112.6° on May 5. Note that the 30-day average temperature prior to May 4 was historically very high (89.3°). How does this compare to previous Core Updates? With the caveat that recent temperatures have been well above historical averages, the May 2020 Core Update was our second-hottest Core Update so far, coming in just below the August 2018 “Medic” update. Who “won” the May Core Update? It’s common to report winners and losers after a major update (and I’ve done it myself), but for a while now I’ve been concerned that these analyses only capture a small window of time. Whenever we compare two fixed points in time, we’re ignoring the natural volatility of search rankings and the inherent differences between keywords. This time ar...
