Year In Review: 2022 Google Algorithm Updates
This post was created by me, originally used as a POV for clients at Jellyfish, written in Jan 2023.
2022 has been a year of multiple, major updates from Google developers. Large scale algorithm changes - ranging from mobile specific to content and even reviews-focused - increased from two or three updates in 2019-2020 to nine updates in both 2021 and 2022.
These updates, while varied, have one goal underpinning them - Improve the user’s search experience by making it more accessible, helpful, and fulfilling. The information provided to the average user needs to be delivered quickly, accurately, and above all else get them to their goal - whether that be learning information or making a purchase/conversion.
Let’s take a look back at updates that impacted our industry the most in 2022, along with what we’ve learned, and how we can prepare for changes to the search algorithm in 2023.
Helpful Content Update – August & December
Arguably the most impactful change to content moderation, Google initially launched its Helpful Content Update in August, targeting North America and the English language. Google’s update looked at content seemingly created solely to rank well rather than to help or inform people. The purpose of the update is “to reduce low-quality content and make it easier to find content that feels authentic and useful in search.”
This update aims to guide people towards “high-quality content” and reward sites hosting it with better rankings. The “helpful content” should be written for humans, not search engines. However, SEO best practices and competitive research should still lead content creation.
Google’s update also aims to penalize unhelpful web pages with AI-developed content. This is not a “spam” update - this is an ongoing (and presumably heavily-weighted) ranking factor that will gauge the amount of “helpful” content on a site vs. the “search-engine-first” content produced only to rank and not to assist.
As of December 5th 2022, the improvement began rolling out across the globe, targeting all languages.
Product Review Updates – March, July & September
Throughout 2021 and 2022, Google released five large-scale Product Review updates. These overlapped with several Core updates and focused primarily on content within product pages and product reviews. The main focus was on “insightful analysis and original research” within reviews and targeted only English-specific languages/sites (for the time being, we expect global/all language updates coming in 2023).
To ensure that product/review content is considered “quality” in the eyes of the Google Algorithm, consider these key factors:
Express expert knowledge about your products.
When recommending a product as the “best” share why you consider that product the best:
Explain what sets a product apart from its competitors.
Show what the product is like physically.
Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of a particular product.
Describe how a product has evolved from previous models.
Identify key decision-making factors for the product's category:
For example, a car review might determine that fuel economy, safety, and handling are key decision-making factors.
Provide visuals as part of reviews when applicable.
Aside from weeding out useful vs. non-useful review content, much of the product SERP appearance has changed in 2022, especially for Organic Search.
Product listings now appear in multiple locations on the first page of Google, with expanding images and reviews/price-focused elements along with the growth of 3D images.
Core & Spam Updates – May, September & October
Major Core Algorithm updates have, in the past, occurred once or twice a year. Starting in 2021 and throughout 2022, Google has pushed two to three large-scale updates live, taking into account everything from a website’s full content to page load speeds.
The three major Core updates from Google were separated by several months but presented the bulk of updates for 2022. Both the Helpful Content update and Product updates were either bundled or launched alongside Core updates.
These Core updates are, according to Google, “changes we make to improve Search overall and keep pace with the changing nature of the web. While nothing in a core update is specific to any particular site, these updates may produce some noticeable changes to how sites perform.”
Core updates look at all regions/languages globally and discover content that is well-constructed and relevant to what users are searching for. Aside from traditional SERP results, these updates generally impact other items including Featured Snippets, Local and Knowledge Graph results. Algorithm changes such as these have the potential to impact any and all types of websites. Some industries report 20% to 60% fluctuations in organic traffic during the 1-2 week period that it takes Core Algorithm updates to roll out fully.
With the Spam updates, typically ingrained into Core changes, Google will “occasionally make notable improvements to how “they” work.” The “they” is Google’s SpamBrain: their AI-based spam-prevention system.
“From time-to-time, we improve that system to make it better at spotting spam and to help ensure it catches new types of spam. Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all.”
Unlike other Algorithm updates we’ve mentioned that target a wide range of pages, including the Core updates themselves, Spam updates target specific guideline violations throughout website content, including internal/external links.
And that’s important to remember: Whenever Google updates its search ranking algorithm, your site can do better or worse in the search results. Knowing when Google makes these updates gives us something to point to if we see massive fluctuations in rankings or traffic. Regardless of algorithm changes, we know the core of SEO is that providing solid, well-thought-out, helpful copy while following best practices for technical items and linking will ensure sites won’t face negative impacts.
How to Prepare for 2023 and Beyond
As we make our way into 2023, the best practices of Search Engine Optimization will continue to be as important as ever. Creating solution-oriented content that users can easily discover is the key to ranking well among competitors, regardless of the changes from Google. In doing so, keep these items in mind:
Improve customer engagement and user experience at all times - UX is becoming a strong driving factor impacting Organic Search performance.
Understand your audiences and what they are searching for.
Keep websites, from imagery to product inventory and everything in between, up to date.
Develop useful, spam-free content for different points in the customer journey.
Above all else - Ensure product pages and listings are fully optimized for both content and technical SEO.
Content Optimizations for Organic Search
Run a Content Gap Analysis - Identify gaps between your site and competitors to pinpoint the types of content you can prioritize.
Understand Search Intent - What are your users looking for? A deeper knowledge of the competitive landscape, and the content types that rank for the results, will help you know the intent of users within your audience.
Knowing the audience's intent also helps target different journey “phases” they are in: Informational, Consideration, Transactional, etc.
Focus on Entity-Based (Semantic) SEO – Entity-based SEO is a context-based word or term used to describe your niche contextually. To help Google best understand your page, you need to include semantic keywords relevant to your industry (product, service, etc.).
Targeting these keywords within metadata and on-page content, along with internal links and domain authority, will improve your E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), increasing the likelihood of populating Featured Snippets or Knowledge Graphs.
Update or Repurpose Existing Content – We all know this by now, Google loves fresh content. Keeping pages updated, especially with “evergreen” content, will help them continually rank over time. If a page ranks well, you may consider repurposing the text-based content as something more visual, such as a video.
Optimize for Voice Search – Within the higher areas of the funnel (Informational or Navigational) answering QA or FAQ content in a conversational tone will help with Features Snippet and PAA (People Also Ask) results, as well as populate voice search results.
Optimizing schema markup for voice search will also help search engines discover your website more quickly.
Drive Traffic with Long-tail Keywords - Long-tail keywords are a great way to gain traffic with highly competitive topics. Similar to other forms of content we’ve mentioned, these will also help populate People Also Ask results.
Technical Optimizations for Organic Search
The use of Technical SEO is as important as content because without a well-structured and discoverable website, search engines may still miss quality content:
Site architecture – Ensure that your site’s structure (from URLs to navigation and subfolders) creates a logical path for both users and search engines to discover content - Internal linking (especially for new content/pages) will also help with this.
This, along with updated sitemaps, robots files, and a cohesive URL category structure, helps search engines easily navigate a website.
XML sitemaps - Keep these up to date, and ensure that you remove obsolete pages
Site speed & Core Web Vitals – Ensure elements that impact Core Web Vitals, such as use of code, size of image files, follow best practices:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This measures a page’s load speed, 2.5 or less is optimal.
First Input Delay (FID): A measure of how interactive your page is. Your pages should have an FID of 100 milliseconds or less.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): CLS measures a page’s visual stability as it loads. A good CLS is 0.1 or lower.
Security – Google uses HTTPS as one of the metrics for measuring page experience. Any and all eCommerce websites should already be “secure” using HTTPS.
Schema – Schema markup, or structured data, is the language of search engines. Schema markup helps search engines understand your website's content, giving users a better experience.