Last month Google fully rolled out a major global update called the Medic Update. Google rolls out several updates to their ranking algorithm each year and had confirmed in March 2018 that this update would be coming.
“As with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded…”
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) 12 March 2018
What does it mean and what is affected?
From the data available this update is mainly focused on Medical and Lifestyle type sites, but due to the complicated nature of the Internet and how information is linked with other data, many other sites have been impacted and have seen a change in their rankings.
Some sites lost, and others gained. Unlike the Penguin and Panda updates there are no immediate ‘fixes’ you can make to your site to counter this change, however the core values do remain constant such as maintaining good and unique content, making sure that your site is user friendly and focusing on security.
Google says that this algorithm has affected sites in most industries and niches globally in one way or another.
How could this impact my own site?
If your site falls under the category of Medical and/or Lifestyle…
If your site pages are optimised and unique, is helpful for your users and is secure, you may see an upward movement in your traffic. If your site is not so unique, not optimised and is difficult to navigate you may see an immediate decline in Google organic traffic.
Even if your site does not fall under one of these categories, it may still be impacted positively or negatively by the update.
If your site is linked from Medical and/or Lifestyle sites and they are affected negatively, the value of those links to your site may have reduced, causing a negative impact to your site.
If the sites which are linked to your site have gained after the Google Medic Update, you will see an improvement in the organic traffic to your site as well.
Although the algorithm is fully rolled out, we may still see ripples for several weeks after as it works its way through the Internet.
Google has been making the algorithmic changes to make the search results better. These updates seem to be rewarding sites that serve the users better and deliver quality content.
The main points to take away from this update:
- Make sure your site has good and unique content.
- The content of your site is written not to gain more organic traffic but to try and help the user looking for your site.
What it means in plain language:
- Put yourself in your user’s shoes and see what they would do to find your product/service. Think about what you can do to get them what they want quickly.
- Use the Internet search terms through your content and make sure the content is relevant.
- Make your site user friendly, fast loading, easy to navigate and secure.
By ensuring that your site provides the best user experience possible and has all the relevant technical optimisations needed, you will reverse any negative impacts and start improving your search ranking in Google results.
