I have been reluctant to cover the negativity around the Google May 2020 core update because I don't want it to come across as me complaining because I was hit. But there has been a lot of complaints not just from the SEO community but from normal searchers about a quality drop in Google's search results since May 2020.
The most notable thread is at Reddit thread with almost 3,000 comments on the thread. The thread starts:
Has google search gotten less accurate in anyone else’s opinion? In the sense that I’ll google something and often have to go to the second page to find the result to get past what look like ads. Even Wikipedia is often on the second page instead of the first result now?
One person responded:
Google search now is:30% ads
30% youtube
20% google books
10% pinterest
10% normal sites
I obviously cannot cite every one of the 3,000 comments in the thread but it is a similar pattern.
Google is aware of the Pinterest thing:
Yes I replied to someone else already that we'll look into the situation where we have multiple pages from different country domains.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 22, 2020
What search did you do and what location? That will help me pass this on.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 24, 2020
Google‘s last update has some serious flaw https://t.co/mxytqcSmK2 https://t.co/T2RMiJeLUt
— Valentin Pletzer (@VorticonCmdr) May 23, 2020
Sites like Stackexchange and Moz Q&A got slammed:
Good catch.
— Cyrus (@CyrusShepard) May 22, 2020
Moz Q&A saw a significant drop.
Hey, thx for pinging me about those. A number of forums definitely dropped during the update (more dropping than gaining based on ones I checked). There were some that increased in visibility like stackoverflow. But, some have seen big gains in prev updates. Maybe an adjustment.
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 22, 2020
Seeing a lot of older threads that have dropped in rankings. Some with big drops. Threads from 2011, 2012, etc. Just a quick look, but worth noting.
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 22, 2020
Tons of UGC sites got hit:
Interesting observation by @mlsutah that the May core update had a big impact on UGC sites.
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) May 23, 2020
Here are some changes in visibility (@sistrix U.S. index) among the top sites in that category.
Notice any patterns? 🤔😏 pic.twitter.com/HwR7vaywxS
But go back to the Reddit thread - scan through all those comments. There is a lot there and I am sure Googlers are reviewing them as well.
I did ask on Twitter about complaints, I had a bunch of people email me examples but I don't want to share the because they were sent to me in private. I like to post public examples, hence public threads and tweets.
Do you think Google's May 2020 core update has a negative impact on the overall Google Search quality? Take my Twitter poll:
Did Google's May 2020 core update have a positive or negative impact of overall search quality?
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) May 26, 2020
Forum discussion at Reddit.
