In Response To Google
(1) On the March 2019 core update claim in the piece: This is baseless speculation. The March 2019 core update was designed to improve the quality of our search results, as all core updates are designed to do. It is incorrect to say it rolled back our quality or our anti-spam protections, which we've developed over many years and continue to improve upon.
Calling this “baseless speculation” is equal parts unfair and ahistorical. To quote Google, as quoted by Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land, Google’s March 2019 was “not the biggest update [Google has] released,” and in that article, Schwartz even suggests that this update might have been a case where Google “reverses the previous core updates,” which resulted in a Google spokesperson saying that it was“constantly improving our algorithms and build forward to improve,” which is most assuredly not a denial. In the event it is a denial, Google should be clear about it.
Furthermore, I linked to several sources — including Roger Monti of Search Engine Journal — who on March 14 2019 referred to the March 2019 core update as “behaving like a rollback of previous updates.” Monti also quoted Brett Tabke of WebMasterWorld, who said, and I quote, “I think we may be seeing a rollback of a few of the last updates.” Monti also published another article called “Data Confirms Why Google March 2019 Update Feels Like a Rollback” on March 16, 2019, which referred to an indepth report from SEO tool company Sistrix that found that “75% of winners were previous losers…that means that 75% of the websites that improved in rankings in this update were sites that lost rankings in previous updates of 2018.”
