What to do after a Google core update: Google's recovery steps

Google publishes its own recovery guidance for core updates, and it is more cautious than most advice circulating after a rollout. It asks site owners to wait, to compare the right weeks, to decide whether the drop is big enough to act on at all, and then to judge the whole site against its helpful content questions rather than make quick fixes. This guide follows that order and quotes Google where the wording matters.

When can you start analyzing a core update’s impact?#

Not until the rollout is finished. Google’s guidance is to check the Search Status Dashboard for the update’s start and end date, and it recommends “waiting at least a full week after a core update completes before analyzing your site in Search Console.”

The wait can be long. Our Google Algorithm Updates timeline records 16 Google-confirmed core updates since November 2021. By Google’s own durations from the Search Status Dashboard history, the median rollout was 14.5 days and the range ran from 6 days 4 hours to 45 days. The March 2024 core update is the 45-day outlier; the August 2024 core update is a more typical example. The full dataset is downloadable as CSV.

Which dates should you compare in Search Console?#

Google’s instruction is to compare a week after the rollout with “a week before the core update started rolling out.” Comparing whole weeks keeps the weekday cycle out of the result, and leaving the rollout window out avoids measuring rankings that were still moving. The Google algorithm update checker runs this comparison on a Search Console export for every confirmed update at once.

Then review your top pages and queries, as Google suggests, and check each search type separately: Web Search, Google Images, Video mode and the News tab can move differently.

Is the drop big enough to act on?#

Google draws the line with two examples. For a small drop, “dropping from position 2 to 4,” it says there is “no need to take drastic action,” and recommends avoiding changes to content that is already performing well. For a large drop, “dropping from position 4 to 29,” it says to do a deeper assessment. The deeper assessment is meant for a sustained, large drop across the site as a whole, not a few pages trading places.

Before assessing anything, confirm the core update is the cause. A spam update or a manual action can land in the same weeks, and seasonality or a site change can look identical on a chart. Our method for that is in how to tell which Google update hit your site.

How do you self-assess against Google’s helpful content questions?#

Google’s core update guidance says to “read through the self-assessment” and check whether the site overall, not just individual pages, delivers content that is helpful, reliable and people first. The questions live in its guide to creating helpful, reliable, people-first content. A few that do the most work in practice:

• “Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?”
• “Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?”
• “Is this content written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?”
• “After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?”

The same guide suggests asking “Who, How, and Why” about your content: who created it, how it was made, and why it exists. Google also suggests asking trusted people unaffiliated with your site to run the assessment, and looking hardest at the pages that were most affected, since other pages on the web may simply be doing a better job for the searcher. That fits a content strategy built for readers first.

Which changes should you avoid after a core update?#

Quick fixes. Google advises: “Avoid doing ‘quick fix’ changes,” giving the example of removing a page element because you heard it was bad for SEO. It asks instead for changes that make sense for users and are sustainable in the long term, such as rewriting or restructuring content so it is easier to read and navigate.

Deletion comes last. Google’s wording: “Deleting content is a last resort, and only to be considered if you think the content can’t be salvaged.” It adds that wanting to delete entire sections is likely a sign those sections were created for search engines in the first place.

How long does recovery from a core update take?#

There is no fixed timeline. Google says some changes can take effect in a few days, but “it could take several months” for its systems to confirm the site as a whole is producing helpful content in the long term. If a few months pass with no effect, it says, “that could mean waiting until the next core update.” You do not necessarily have to wait for one, because smaller unannounced updates can also move a site that has improved.

Google is also explicit that there is “no guarantee” changes will produce a noticeable impact, and that positions in its results are not fixed. Recovery is not a return to a previous ranking that the site is owed. It is the result of the site becoming a better answer than the pages that replaced it.

What if the drop came from a spam update instead?#

Then the core update guidance is the wrong playbook. Google’s advice after a spam update is to review its spam policies for compliance, and it notes that automated systems learn “over a period of months” that a site complies. In our record, 10 of the 39 completed updates overlapped another rollout, including the March 2024 and October 2023 core updates, each of which ran alongside a spam update. Settle which update you are recovering from before choosing what to change.