It took 12 days, but Google completed the July 2021 core update between July 1st and July 12th … and it was a doozy.
Last month, Google confirmed the July 2021 core update as complete. The company started the July 2021 core update on July 1, 2021. This update rolled out over twelve days, whereas the sister update, the June 2021 core update only two ten days to fully roll out.
July smaller than June. It seemed based on analysis from several data providers that the July core update was smaller and less impactful than the June core update.
The facts. Like all others, this was a global update meaning not specific to any region, language or category of web sites. Classically a broad core update released about every several months. The previous core update before the back-to-back June and July core update combo was just shy of a six-month wait period after the December 3rd core update.
Impact. The tracking seems to indicate the impact of both July updates was felt on July 2 and then again on July 12, 2021. So, if you saw big changes in your rankings between July 1 and July 12, 2021, especially on July 2nd and 9th – it was likely related to this July 2021 core update.
A number of ongoing updates. Google has had about ten updates by Google. In the most recent order, we had the July 2021 core update, Google MUM rolled out this month, then the June 28 spam update, the June 23rd spam update, the Google page experience update, the Google predator algorithm update, the June 2021 core update and then a few unconfirmed updates.
Previous core updates. The most recent previous core update was the June 2021 core update and that update was slow to roll out but a big one. Then there was the December 2020 core update and the December update was very big, bigger than the May 2020 core update, and that update was also big and broad and took a January 2020 core update, analysis on that update here. The one prior to that was the September 2019 core update. That update felt weaker to many SEOs and webmasters, as many said it didn’t have as big of an impact as previous core updates. Google also released an update in November, but that one was specific to local rankings. You can read more about past Google updates here.
What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to think about if you are negatively impacted by a core update. There are no specific actions to take for recovery, and in fact, a negative rankings impact may not signal anything is wrong with your pages. However, Google has provided a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update. They also said you can see a bit of a recovery between core updates but the biggest change you would see would be after another core update.
Why you should care. Whenever Google updates its search ranking algorithms it means that your site can perform better or worse in the search results. Knowing when Google makes these updates gives us an outlier to understand if it was something updated on your web site or something Google changed with its ranking algorithm.
If your site saw any changes between July 1 and July 12, it was likely related to the July core update.