As you know, Google released its first core update in over five months, the Google August 2023 core update, on August 22nd at around 1:30 pm ET. Since then, I’ve been tracking the volatility and the chatter from within the SEO community to see how widespread, extensive, and impactful this update has been.
So far, and keep in mind, it is far from over yet, and the update does not seem as widespread as previous core updates. That is not to say sites were not hit hard and in a significant way, but it just doesn’t seem like this update had a footprint on tons of sites SEOs are working on. The update seem to hit some sites in a really big way on Friday, August 25th.
Again, if this update impacted a site, they could have seen 20 to 80% gains or losses in terms of Google Search visibility. And yes, we have some examples of that to share…
To summarize the details below, here is what I am seeing so far:
Google August 2023 core update announced on August 22 at 1:30 pm ET
First movement noticed around Friday, August 25th
Sites impacted can be impacted in a huge way with traffic gains or losses from 20 to 80%
Impact is not as widespread as previous core updates
Let’s dig into the sources I track to show you why I came up with the above summary.
SEO Chatter
Here is some of the chatter from the SEO forums and comment areas across this site, WebmasterWorld and BlackHatWorld. Most of the chatter started on Friday, August 25th and continued through the weekend:
Here are some charts of specific sites with changes:
Tracking Tools On August 2023 Core Update
The tools, at least most of them, noticed more volatility around Friday, August 25th and then seemed to calm down after. Here is what they show:
So you can see, we had volatility spotted by both the Google Search tracking tools and also via SEOs on the ground. It spiked around Friday, August 25th.
I am expecting more from this update – I don’t think this update sunk its teeth into enough of the web. Or maybe this is it? I will continue to track this in aggregate and keep you posted.
