Google December 2020 Core Update – Shopify Store Reactions

The following is a copy of an email that went out to our email list on 12/7/2020

Hey,  

So unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few days, you would of heard…..or noticed that Google is currently rolling out a core update. 

This particular update seems way overdue…..but hey….it is 2020 afterall. 

Running Around With Hair On Fire

As happens on SEO social media channels when updates are rolling out you get the inevitable gasps of desperation:

all my traffic is gone” or “5 years work down the drain

or on the flip side….

traffic up 50%….I’m an SEO guru rockstar

The thing is, no matter how a site reacts, we simply don’t know what Google will do, and we cannot control it. I feel for those that have lost traffic and rankings. 

We actually have had 1 affiliate site that lost about 30% of it’s traffic. 

We are not worrying too much, as this site is only 4 months old (and was probably over performing, and has now come back to where it probably deserves to be).

The update is still rolling out, so fluctuations will continue until it’s complete.

The Best Way To React?

Simple…don’t. At least not immediately. Be patient. It can sometimes take weeks for the results of updates to settle down. 

One thing is for sure, there are 1000s of talented SEO’s trying to figure out what has changed, and in the next few weeks we will start to see a consensus of what type of sites or what type of tactics were hit, and what is working better.

How Did Our Shopify Stores Perform?

I’m happy to say that all our client and own stores are holding strong or have had a nice boost. 

It certainly seems that so far older more established sites (ie 5 year old +) that we work with, that we have worked hard on the technical SEO aspects over the last 6 months, have been given a boost.  

That means no broken linksorphan pagescrawl issues and other frustrating but important technical issues. 

The less established stores where we have also worked hard on the technical aspects have held very strong, albeit with no real significant boost. 

So far this is what we are seeing in our network. See a couple of examples below:

google alo update results

 

analytics graph ga
One other important signal we incorporate into all our Shopify stores is deeper schema.org than the status quo. 

This certainly helps Google have a clearer understanding of what the store is about, the store entity and it’s relevance in the market.

So….does mean we know everything? Not at all….

But it has worked for us so far (and with this update) very well.

Cheers,

Jono

https://ecomxseo.com

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