Yesterday, Danny Sullivan (Twitter handle @searchliaison) tweeted and confirmed that Google is rolling out a large core algorithm update.
Webmaster World traditionally names the updates and this one they are calling the Google Florida 2 Update. Why Florida 2? This is a hat tip to the original Florida update that started rolling out on November 1, 2003 that coincided with the PubCon convention in The Sunshine State.
The algo update is so new that Moz has not refreshed its Google Algorithm Change History page that has tracked all of the updates since the year 2000.
So, what’s the deal-io with Google Florida 2?
Search Engine Journal is comparing it to a previous core update stating, “It can be said that the underlying goal of all broad core updates has been to improve user satisfaction. One of the past broad core updates involved the introduction of Neural Matching … Neural matching was not targeting anything. It was simply a way for improving the relevance of the web pages in the search results so that they more adequately answered a search query.”
Search Engine Land has a slightly different take, saying, “What changed? Right now it is very early and it is hard to guess what has changed. Based on the SEO chatter around this update, prior to Google confirming the update, some are saying this was again targeting the health/medical space. But, Google has said there was no specific target at medical or health sites with that August 1st update. It is hard to know which types of sites were impacted the most right now. We will continue to monitor the situation and keep you updated on any insights we see related to this update.”
When it comes to broad core updates, Google’s advice is that there is nothing for SEO’s and webmasters to fix in response to the algorithm change. The best course of action is to work on creating interesting, informative and compelling content and then grab your beach chair and be patient as the details start to roll in like the waves on a Florida beach.
Citations
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-update-florida-2/297973/#close
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4938447.htm
