September 2019 core update: dates, what changed and what to do

What Google changed#

On 24 September 2019, Google SearchLiaison posted: “Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the September 2019 Core Update.” Google said its guidance was unchanged, and linked to the blog post it had published on 1 August 2019 about core updates. Google did not describe any specific ranking change.

That post set out the advice Google still repeats: pages that drop in a core update “haven’t violated our webmaster guidelines,” and “there might not be anything to fix at all.”

When it rolled out#

Later on 24 September 2019, Google SearchLiaison posted that the update was “now live and will be rolling out across our various data centers over the coming days.” Google’s Danny Sullivan said that same day that core updates typically took a few days to fully roll out, and that Google did not post when they ended. There is no Google-stated finish date for this update.

What is known about its impact#

Google published no impact figures for this update. Its core update guidance says these updates “don’t target specific sites or individual web pages,” and that pages which move down are not necessarily bad. Treat any winner or loser percentage attributed to this update as a third-party estimate.

What site owners should do#

Google’s core ranking systems are still in use today, and its current core update guidance applies to this update as much as to recent ones:

• Wait until a core update has finished, then at least one more full week, before judging.
• Compare a week after the update with a week before it began.
• Take no drastic action for small drops; for a large, sustained drop, assess the whole site against Google’s helpful content self-assessment questions.
• Expect recovery, if it comes, to take time and often a later core update.

How to check whether it affected you#

Search Console keeps only 16 months of data, so its reports no longer cover September 2019. Use archived analytics exports or rank tracking data from September and October 2019 and compare the weeks either side of 24 September. BERT launched a month later, so keep your window short. The Google Algorithm Updates timeline lists the updates around it.

Related updates#

• The June 2019 core update was the previous core update.
• The January 2020 core update was the next one.
• BERT launched in the month after this update.