August 2023 Core Update: What We Know

If your rankings or traffic started to move this week, the August 2023 core update is the most likely reason. Google released it on 22 August 2023 and said the rollout may take up to two weeks to complete. It is still rolling out as I write this, so any changes you see now are not final.

In this article, I cover what Google has confirmed, what a core update actually changes, and what I would check (and not touch) while the rollout runs. My aim is to help you avoid the two classic mistakes: panicking too early, or ignoring a real problem.

What Google Has Confirmed About the August 2023 Core Update

Google has shared very little, which is normal for a core update. Here is what we know for sure.

• Start date: Google released the update on 22 August 2023, in the afternoon US Eastern time.
• Rollout time: Google said the rollout may take up to two weeks.
• Where it was announced: Google posted it on its Search Status Dashboard and on its Search Central social account.
• When it ends: Google said it will update its ranking release history page once the rollout is complete.

That is the full list of facts. Google has not named any type of site, niche or tactic as a target. Anything beyond the list above that you read this week is someone’s guess, and I’d treat it that way.

This is the second announced core update of 2023. The first started on 15 March and finished on 28 March. If you were affected then, my notes on the March 2023 core update are a useful comparison point.

What a Core Update Is (and What It Isn’t)

A core update is a broad change to Google’s main ranking systems. Google makes these several times a year. They change how Google judges the quality and relevance of pages across the whole web, not just in one niche.

Core updates are not penalties. There is no manual action, no message in Search Console and no single error to fix. Google has said for years that a drop after a core update often means other pages are now judged to be a better match for the search, not that your page broke a rule.

It also helps to know what a core update is not:

• It is not a spam update. Spam updates target specific tactics, like link schemes or cloaking (showing Google different content than users see).
• It is not the helpful content update. That is a separate system that looks for content made mainly for search engines.
• It is not a reviews update. Reviews updates look at review pages specifically. Google ran one in April, which I covered in the April 2023 reviews update article.

Core updates can affect every type of result. That includes regular web results, featured snippets and Google Discover. So if your Discover traffic moved this week, don’t rule out the core update.

Don’t Mix This Up With the FAQ and How-To Change

On 8 August, Google announced it would show far fewer FAQ and How-To rich results. FAQ results are now mostly limited to well-known government and health sites. How-To results are limited to desktop.

This matters because the two changes landed only two weeks apart. If your clicks dropped but your average position stayed the same, the rich results change is a more likely cause than the core update. You lost the extra space on the page, not your ranking.

I explain how to check this in Google limits FAQ and How-To rich results. When I look at a drop this month, ruling this out is one of the first things I do.

What to Do During the Rollout

The honest answer is: watch, take notes, and don’t make big changes yet. Rankings jump around a lot while a core update rolls out. A page can drop on day two and come back on day nine.

Here is the routine I follow during a rollout.

1. Mark the start date. Add a note for 22 August 2023 in your analytics and your reporting sheets. You will want it later when you compare periods.
2. Check the dashboard, not social media. The Search Status Dashboard will show when the rollout is complete. I check it every few days instead of following every rumour.
3. Look at daily data. In the Search Console Performance report, switch to a daily view of clicks, impressions and average position. Weekly totals hide the exact day a change began.
4. Remember the data delay. Search Console data usually lags by a day or two. What you see today does not yet show the full effect of the first days of the update.
5. Write down what moves. Note which pages and queries go up or down, and on which date. A simple sheet is enough.
6. Keep doing normal work. Publish, fix bugs and update pages as you normally would. Just don’t start a big rewrite or delete content based on a few days of data.

In my experience, the most damaging thing a site owner can do in week one of a core update is panic. I have seen sites rewrite good pages, change titles across the whole site or remove content in a rush. That makes it much harder to learn what actually happened.

How to Check If the Core Update Affected Your Site

Once Google confirms the rollout is complete, you can do a proper check. I like to wait about a week after it finishes, so the numbers have settled and the data delay has caught up.

Compare the Right Periods

Compare a period after the rollout with a period of the same length before it started. For this update, a good starting point is the two weeks before 22 August against the two weeks after the rollout ends.

Use the Compare option in the Search Console Performance report for this. Then look at the Queries and Pages tabs to see which items changed the most.

Separate Small Moves From Big Ones

Not every drop needs action. A page that moved from position 3 to position 5 has had a small shift. A page that moved from position 4 to position 25 has had a big one.

I only plan real work for the big, lasting drops. Small moves often come back on their own, or they are just normal day-to-day movement.

Rule Out Other Causes First

Before you blame the update, check these:

• Tracking problems: Did your GA4 setup change? Did a tag stop firing? With Universal Analytics no longer processing data since July, many sites have only had GA4 for a short time.
• Technical issues: Look at the Page indexing report and the Crawl stats report for new errors.
• Seasonal patterns: Late August is a quiet time for many industries. Compare with the same weeks last year.
• Rich result changes: As covered above, the FAQ and How-To change can cut clicks without changing rankings.
• Site changes: A redesign, a migration or a new plugin around the same time can cause drops that look like an update.

Look for Patterns Across Pages

Once you have a list of pages that dropped, group them. Are they all in one section, like the blog or product pages? Are they all a certain type, like short posts, old posts or pages with a lot of ads?

A pattern tells you where to focus. If the losses are spread evenly across the whole site, the issue is usually wider, like overall trust or quality signals for the site.

A Practical Example

Say you run a home improvement blog. On 24 August, your clicks to “how to fix a leaking tap” style guides start to drop, while your product category pages stay steady.

First, I would check whether those guides had How-To rich results before 8 August. If they did, part of the drop may be that change. Then I would wait for the rollout to finish before I judge the rest.

If the drop holds after the rollout, I would search the main queries myself and compare my guides with the pages that now rank above them. Do they show clearer steps? Are they written by someone who has clearly done the job? Do they answer the question faster? That comparison usually tells me more than any tool.

What Google Looks for After a Core Update

Google has not given new advice with this update. It points site owners to its existing guidance on helpful content and core updates. The key message stays the same: focus on content that is helpful, reliable and made for people first.

Google’s page on creating helpful, reliable, people-first content lists the self-assessment questions it suggests. I recommend going through them with your most affected pages open. Some of the ones I find most useful:

• Does the content give original information, research or analysis?
• Does it give a complete answer, or does it leave the reader needing to search again?
• Is it clear who wrote it, and why they know the topic?
• Would someone leave feeling they learned enough to reach their goal?
• Was it made mainly to rank, rather than to help a real person?

Experience is also part of how Google thinks about quality now. Since December, the quality rater guidelines use E-E-A-T, with “Experience” added to expertise, authoritativeness and trust. I covered that change in E-A-T becomes E-E-A-T, and I think it is worth a reread if your pages dropped this time.

How to Respond If You Lost Rankings

If the rollout ends and you have a large, lasting drop, here is how I would approach the work.

1. Pick the pages that matter most. Start with the pages that lost the most clicks and that bring in leads or sales. Don’t try to fix the whole site at once.
2. Study what ranks now. Search your main queries and read the top results. Note what they do better: depth, structure, freshness, first-hand detail or clear authorship.
3. Improve the content for real. Add missing information, first-hand experience, better examples and clearer structure. Cut padding that doesn’t help the reader.
4. Show who is behind the content. Add author names, short bios and an about page that explains who runs the site and why it can be trusted.
5. Deal with weak pages. Thin or outdated pages can drag down how a site is seen. Improve them, merge them into stronger pages or, as a last step, remove them.
6. Give it time. Track the changes and be patient. Some gains show in days, but bigger shifts often only show at the next core update.

I’d skip “quick fixes” like changing word counts, adding keywords to every heading or swapping out page dates. These don’t address what core updates look at, and they can make content worse for readers.

How Long Recovery Can Take

This is the question I get the most after any core update. The honest answer is that there is no fixed timeline.

Google has said that if you make real improvements, you may see some change within days. But Google’s systems can take months to confirm that a site has improved over time. Google has also said that it makes smaller core updates between the big announced ones, and these can help sites that have improved.

In practice, I plan for recovery to take at least until the next announced core update. If you improve your pages now, you are in a better position whenever that comes.

What If Your Site Went Up?

Gains after a core update are also not final until the rollout ends. I’ve often seen early gains shrink a bit by the end of a rollout.

If you do gain, look at which pages went up and why. That tells you what Google likes about your site right now, which is useful when you plan new content. Don’t assume the gain is permanent, either. Keep improving the pages that did well, because competitors will be working on theirs too.

My Take on the August 2023 Core Update

This update looks like a standard broad core update so far. Google has not said it targets anything specific, and I don’t expect new guidance from it.

What makes August a little harder is timing. The FAQ and How-To change, the recent move to GA4 and the summer slowdown all land around the same weeks. That makes clean analysis harder, so I’d be extra careful about blaming the core update for every change you see.

My advice is simple: wait for the rollout to finish, compare clean date ranges, rule out other causes, and then work on the pages that lost the most. That process works for every core update, not just this one.

Conclusion

The August 2023 core update started on 22 August and may take up to two weeks to roll out. It is a broad change, not a penalty, and Google has not named any target. Until the rollout ends, watch your data and avoid big changes.

Your next step: add an annotation for 22 August, set a reminder to check Search Console a week after the rollout is complete, and keep the FAQ and How-To change in mind when you read the numbers. If you want a checklist to work from, my guide to the March 2023 core update covers what to check page by page.