The year 2022 was a happening one by all standards of search. From changing the way we create content to how we optimize it at the end, Google has kept content creators, marketers, and SEO professionals on their toes throughout the year.
As we come to the end of an eventful year, let’s take a look at some of the most important Google updates in 2022.
The most important Google algorithm updates in 2022
A Google update is more than just a piece of news. It impacts how your website is indexed and ranked and how much visitor traffic it can get with existing content. For successful content marketing campaigns, it is necessary that you are aware of the latest Google updates.
Here is a list of all the Google updates in 2022 and how they impacted the search engine landscape.
Page Experience Update (Feb 22)
2022 started with the announcement of the desktop ‘Page Experience’ update in February. This update was a follow-up to the previous page experience update of 2021. The difference between the two is that the earlier update was focused on the mobile usability of websites. In contrast, the 22nd February Page Experience update was focused on the desktop version of websites.
What is it about?
Applying the core web vital metrics such as Largest Contentful Paint (LCP,) Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS,) First Input Delay (FID), HTTPS Security, and the absence of intrusive interstitials to desktop search results.
Through this update, Google has separated mobile search rankings from desktop rankings. Websites with separate versions for mobile and desktop will be ranked separately for both versions.
Its Impact
The impact of this update was seen across the search engine landscape. Websites have now started focusing on both the desktop and mobile responsiveness of their websites.
Product Reviews Update (March 23, July 27, and Sep 20)
Building on the previous product review updates, Google released three follow-up updates this year. The first was on 23rd March, followed by one on 27th July and another on 20th September.
What is it about?
Product review updates are aimed at improving the quality of search results when people search for product reviews. The updates of 2022 were aimed at identifying trustworthy and credible product reviews while differentiating between multiple product reviews and single product reviews.
Its Impact
These updates had little impact on the search engine ranking of websites as they were targeted at product reviews only. However, eCommerce website owners must now ensure that the reviews posted about their products are genuine and offer insightful information to visitors.
May 2022 Core Update (May 25)
On 25th May, Google released the May 22 Core update. This was the first core update in more than 6 months.
What is it about?
As is with other core updates, this one was about making a few tweaks to the existing ranking systems and curbing the impact of blackhat SEO techniques on the quality of search results.
Its Impact
The impact of this core update was across the web. Websites from every industry saw web traffic volatility. While there is no way to predict what caused these fluctuations, experts in the SEO industry believe the broad changes were related to ranking factors and the identification of SEO malpractices.
Helpful Content Update (Aug 25)
On 25th August, 2022, Google released the ‘Helpful Content’ update. This update was meant to improve how Google indexes websites and differentiates good content from bad.
What is it about?
The Helpful Content update brought a new ranking factor into play. Since this update, Google has started flagging websites that offer little to no value to their visitors with their content. Google provided a list of questions to help website owners re-evaluate their content quality and make necessary changes.
Its Impact
The impact of this update was seen across websites. The kind of content that was most impacted by this update was online educational materials, arts and entertainment, shopping, and tech-related.
Website owners creating content only for search engine rankings saw a major drop in website traffic. In contrast, webmasters and SEO professionals creating content centered around the user saw little to no impact from this update.
You can read more about the Helpful Content update in this detailed Scalenut blog, ‘What’s the new Google core update all about and how to plan SEO going forward?’
September 2022 Core Update
On 12th September, 2022, Google rolled out another core update to improve on the May Core Update and make some tweaks to the ranking algorithms.
What is it about?
This core update was aimed at improving the way Google algorithms work. It was meant to apply the learning from the May core update and increase the efficiency of ranking algorithms in finding the best sources of information for a search query.
Its Impact
There was little to no impact from this update for many websites. The website traffic after this update was less volatile, with few noticeable changes. However, Google re-emphasized the importance of creating genuinely informative content with this update.
October 2022 Spam Update
On 19th October, 2022, Google released another Spam update. This update was published to build on the learnings from the previous spam update of 2021.
What is it about?
The October 22 Spam update was about improving the quality of search results across the web in all languages. The earlier spam update was largely focused on English, whereas this update applied spam detection systems to content in all languages.
Its Impact
This was a global update affecting all languages that took less than 48 hours to roll out. Websites that practice blackhat SEO techniques saw a major drop in their website traffic, whereas websites that publish genuinely helpful content saw a spike in website traffic.
December 2022 Helpful Content Update
On 6th December, 2022, Google rolled out another helpful content update. This time, it made a few changes to better differentiate high-quality content from low-quality content.
What is it about?
This update was aimed at adding new signals to the classifiers that help Google algorithms identify helpful content. It also brought the helpful content update to all languages.
Its Impact
The impact of this rollout was primarily seen by regional language websites. Many websites saw a bump in the rankings as they were classified as sources of helpful content in that language. On the other hand, webmasters that published content only for search engines saw a drop in their rankings.
Refer to our detailed analysis blog on this update, ‘Just In On Google Update: Google just released another helpful content update.’
December 2022 Link Spam Update
On 14th December, Google rolled out another link spam update. This was a follow-up update to their previous link spam update.
What is it about?
While trying to rank higher, many websites fall back on the lucrative shortcut of buying backlinks. This update was a major crackdown on such websites. It took a step ahead of the previous update. While earlier, Google was only concerned with identifying low-value adding links, now it has started looking at the buyers and sellers of unnatural links.
Its Impact
The impact of this update was fairly visible in the search results. Earlier, users might have got a few totally unrelated search results just because they had a lot of backlinks. Now, these results are removed from the search results page.
To know more about the December link spam update, check out this detailed Scalenut blog, ‘Just In On Google Update: Google releases December 2022 link spam update.’
That’s all for Google Update, but what about Chat GPT?
That was all about how Google is trying to make search a safe place, but there was another major update in the world of SEO: The introduction of ChatGPT.
For those who aren't completely tuned in, ChatGPT is a conversational chatbot developed by OpenAI, an AI research organization. It was released on 30th November and has been a major talking point across the SEO community for content creation.
Every marketer should know about ChatGPT and its implications on the content industry. If you want to take a deep dive into the topic, here is an in-depth Scalenut blog, ‘What is ChatGPT And Can You Use It For Content & SEO?', which covers everything you need to know about ChatGPT.
How you can use AI to win over SERP
In a world of unlimited information, your target audience has no dearth of options. Whether they are looking for general information or want to make a purchase, there are many organizations for them to choose from. Marketers need to scale their content marketing efforts if they are going to stand against their competitors.
AI-powered SEO and content marekting platforms like Scalenut can help you do that. From keyword research to content creation and publishing, we have many powerful tools that can help you do a lot in much less time.
Even Google has acknowledged that content produced by AI writers does not necessarily mean that it will be ranked lower than human-generated content. As long as you are offering valuable insights to the reader, Google has no major problems with AI content.
About Scalenut
Scalenut is an all-in-one SEO and content marketing platform powered by AI that enables marketers all over the world to make high-quality, competitive content at scale. From research, planning, and outlines to ensuring quality, Scalenut helps you achieve the best in everything.
Empower your content marketing campaigns with AI.
Sign up on Scalenut, and start creating content today.
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