Only two weeks after the October 2023 core update finished rolling out, we have a new core update rolling out – the November 2023 core update. This is a different update to the core update, Google said, “We have different systems that are considered core to our ranking process; this month’s core update involves an improvement to a different core system than last month.”
The new Google November 2023 core update started to roll out yesterday, November 2, at 3:09 pm ET. Like most Google updates, it can take about two weeks to roll out. This is the fourth core update of the 2023 year, and the eighth official Google algorithm update of the 2023 year.
Google wrote it, “Released the November 2023 core update. The rollout may take up to 2 weeks to complete.” Here is the tweet with the announcement:
Felt It Coming
Yesterday, I wrote about the bug with the October 2023 core update and noted how it was unusual for the charts to spike with a fix to Google Discover issues. Well maybe that was signs that the new core update was brewing?
Some might think Google is fixing the October core update or that this bug with Discover is related to this November core update but Google is saying it is unrelated. Who really knows…
Google says no:
Oh and we have a reviews update coming next week.
Google November 2023 Core Update Quick Facts:
Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:
Name: Google November 2023 Broad Core Update
Launched: November 2, 2023 at around 3 pm ET
Rollout: Finished on November 28, 2023 at around 11:30 am ET
Targets: It looks at all types of content
Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards great web pages
Global: This is a global update impacting all regions, in all languages.
Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update but so far, this seems to be a typical core update that reaches wide and the impact is fast.
Discover: Core updates impact Google Discover and other features, also feature snippets and more.
Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google’s core update advice.
Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. Maybe this is what we saw the past couple of weeks or all those unconfirmed Google updates.
Recent Google Search Updates
Google has been busy with pushing out search updates. Google is rolled out the October 2023 spam update. Google also rolled out the October 2023 core update last month. And Google fixed a bug with that core update that was impacting Google Discover traffic a couple of days ago..
We had an unconfirmed update on October 25th and October 27th and also around October 1st. Google did not confirm this update, but some are speculating it is either a tremor from the helpful content update or an early spam update consequence.
The September 2023 Google helpful content update started on September 14th and finished rolling out on September 28th.
And it was only 6 weeks ago when Google started to roll out the August 2023 core update. That update started on August 22nd and was completed on September 7th, only four weeks ago.
Plus, to add to all of this, Google had a massive indexing issue on October 4.
If that isn’t enough for you we have a reviews update coming next week.
You got your work cut out for you, SEOs…
Previous Broad Core Updates
Here is a list of the most recent core updates we’ve seen since Google started to confirm them. Previously we nicknamed them Phantom updates or unconfirmed updates.
October 2023 Core Update: October 5, 2023 through October 19, 2023
August 2023 Core Update: August 22, 2023 through September 7, 2023
March 2023 Core Update: March 15, 2023 through March 28, 2023
September 2022 Core Update: September 12, 2022 through September 26, 2022
May 2022 Core Update: May 25, 2022 through June 9, 2022
November 2021 Core Update: November 17, 2021 through November 30, 2021
July 2021 Core Update: July 1, 2021 through July 12, 2021
June 2021 Core Update: June 2, 2021 through June 12, 2021
December 2020 Core Update: December 3, 2020 through December 16, 2020
May 2020 Core Update: May 4, 2020 through May 18, 2020
January 2020 Core Update: January 13, 2020 through mostly January 17, 2020
September 2019 Core Update: September 24, 2019
Google June 2019 Core Update: June 3, 2019 through June 8, 2019
SEO Chatter On November 2023 Core Update
Here is some of the chatter from WebmasterWorld and the comments here:
Google Tracking Tools On November 2023 Core Update:
Here is what the tools are showing so far from the tools:
Cognitive SEO (seems stalled):
I should also note that there are some noticing big local pack changes, here is what the BrightLocal Local RankFlux tool shows:
Google posted a bit more detail over here with more Q&A.
Forum discussion at X and WebmasterWorld.
