Google May 2022 core update is finished rolling out

Google has confirmed that the May 2022 core update is now finished rolling out. The update took 15 days to roll out, starting on May 25, 2022 and ending on June 9, 2022.

The announcement. Google posted on Twitter this morning at 3:44am ET that the update has completed rolling out:

May 2022 core update. As a reminder, the May 2022 core update started to roll out at about 11:30 a.m. ET on May 25, 2022. This update took 9 days to roll out after it was announced, it finished rolling out on June 9, 2022.

When and what was felt. Based on the data, this update was a big update and rolled out quickly for many queries the data providers track. We did see some “tremors,” shifts in volatility, after the initial update, the largest tremors were around June 5th and that should be the final sets of volatility you would see from the initial broad core update release.

More on the May 2022 core update

The SEO community. The May 2022 core update seems much more significant than the November 2021 core update. Unlike the November 2021 core update, where the timing for that update was not the best, i.e. right during the busiest online shopping season, this update was scheduled a lot better for retailers. I covered the community reaction in one blog post on Search Engine Roundtable early on. It includes some of the early chatter, ranking charts and social shares from some SEOs.

On Twitter you can find plenty of examples of SEOs sharing charts from their clients – mostly showing winners but also showing losers – with this update.

What to do if you are hit. Google has given advice on what to consider if you are negatively impacted by a core update in the past. There aren’t specific actions to take to recover, and in fact, a negative rankings impact may not signal anything is wrong with your pages. However, Google has offered a list of questions to consider if your site is hit by a core update. Google did say you can see a bit of a recovery between core updates but the biggest change you would see would be after another core update.

Why we care. Whenever Google updates its search ranking algorithms, it means that your site can do better or worse in the search results. Knowing when Google makes these updates gives us something to point to in order to understand if it was something you changed on your website or something Google changed with its ranking algorithm. Google released the May 2022 core update on May 25th and it is now complete – now it is time to dig in and investigate how your site(s) did with this update and take the necessary steps to continue to improve in the future.

More on Google updates

You can read more of our coverage in Search Engine Land’s Google Algorithm Updates history.