Is your website visitation down this month?

Google Algorithm updates might be the answer

In November, Google had several updates to its search algorithms which might have affected the ranking of your website.

What are algorithms and how do they affect search results? 

According to statista.com, there are 1.72 billion websites in the world wide web (As of October 2019), yes that’s right, billions with a B!


In order to filter through and provide users with websites that are relevant to their search, search engines use mathematical instructions that help computers process this information and provide the user with the right results.


Algorithms use things such as keywords as well as other factors like the quality of the content and the speed of the site. Google collects all these results and ranks them to display them on Google’s search engine results page (SERP).


This year, Google modified the algorithms every month and many web owners are finding it challenging to keep up to date with SEO best practices. 

The importance of SEO

Implementing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) good practice like adding keywords to titles or using subheadings, is very important to ensure a good ranking on the search results page.

Why does Google update the algorithms?

Google regularly makes changes and updates the algorithms to improve the accuracy of the search results. The changes made this month are intended to make search results more useful for users and remove sites that use manipulative tactics to boost their search results.


Another addition this year was the rollout of a new system called Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT). 

Introducing BERT

Some websites have suffered a 40% loss in traffic as a result of the changes implemented. Google’s Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Muller, assure website owners that BERT is unlikely the cause of the decline on Traffic.


“Maybe first of all, this would not be from BERT. The BERT changes are particularly about understanding user queries better and around being able to understand text better in general.


So it’s not that we would say that suddenly your page is less relevant. But rather with BERT we would try to understand does this question that someone is asking us, does it match this website best. And usually that’s for more complicated questions.


The thing to keep in mind is that we make changes all the time. We’ve made several core algorithm changes as well over the… last month or so, which kind of overlap with the rollout of BERT as well. “



Muller believes that the decline in traffic is more likely due to other core changes that were made at the same time that BERT was being rolled out.

What can I do to improve my Google Search Rankings again?

Muller recommended that web owners should focus their attention on overall SEO good practice and high-quality content rather than purely technical aspects of SEO. He also recommended reading Google’s guidance on core algorithm updates.


If your website has experienced a decline in traffic recently and can’t figure out why; we got you covered. 


Our team of highly skilled SEO experts can help you audit your website and offer you some advice on improving your overall user experience to help you improve your search rankings.



Contact Us to find out what can we do to help you improve your SEO and get a quote today. 

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