Zentury Spotlight– Google Releases August 2023 Core Update

Google Releases August 2023 Core Update

Google announced the launch of their core search update for August 2023, which might take several weeks to complete.

Once the upgrade’s deployment is complete, Google said it will update its ranking release history page.

To guarantee that users always receive the most relevant and trustworthy results, Google regularly releases fundamental upgrades.

Although core updates aren’t intended to target particular websites or pages, they could make pages that were previously lower in the rankings more visible. On the other hand, previously awarded pages can see a drop in position.

A core update may have no impact at all, a negative influence on a website’s search performance, or both.

Google emphasizes that a drop in performance following a core update doesn’t always mean your website is broken.

If a drop occurs, it can be the result of changes made by the core update rather than an issue with the structure or content of your website.

Google advises people who notice reductions in ranks to concentrate on increasing the quality of their websites rather than looking for technical solutions.,

Google advises you to do the following to enhance your search performance following a core update:

• Examine the pages that aren’t performing well in detail.
• Look up the search keywords that brought visitors to those sites.
• Compare your writing to the queries listed on Google’s help page.

However, Google warns that no page has a static or fixed position in its search results, and that modifications aren’t always guaranteed to help with recovery.

OpenAI Enables Developers to Tailor GPT-3.5 Turbo Through Fine-Tuning

OpenAI enables developers to modify GPT-3.5 Turbo through fine-tuning and boost performance on particular workloads. Later this year this feature will also be available for GPT-4.

Developers can fine-tune the language model to suit certain requirements. For instance, a company may modify GPT-3.5 Turbo to better reflect the voice and tone of its brand. Or for example, a developer may train it to structure API answers as JSON consistently.

Early testers used fine-tuning to achieve things like:

• Improve the consistency and dependability of the model’s output formatting
• Improve its ability to follow instructions.
• Match the style and message of a certain brand.

Prompt lengths can now be reduced by up to 90% thanks to fine-tuning. This resulted in decreased computing costs and speeding up API requests.

Performing fine-tuning on big language models like GPT-3.5 Turbo might enhance the performance in the following scenarios:

• Match a brand’s voice and terminology to the bot’s tone.
• Create customized taglines, ad content, and social media posts for advertising
• Produce more intelligible, human-sounding translations
• Study terminology and forms unique to the domain.
• Comply with a programming language’s style and conventions
• Summarize texts by paying particular attention to important information, such as sports scores.

Currently, GPT-3.5 Turbo fine-tuning is available only in beta and OpenAI suggests using its gpt-3.5-turbo-0613 model for better utilization.

Google Podcast Clarifies Ranking Systems & Updates 

In the most recent episode of Google’s podcast “Search Off the Record,” Search Liaison Danny Sullivan participates in the conversation to address an always hot topic.

In conjunction with the release of Google’s core algorithm update, in August 2023, Sullivan clarifies typical misunderstandings and inquiries concerning ranking systems. We will discuss some crucial points said by Sullivan.

The program discussed the false assumptions SEO experts have about ranking algorithm updates.

One common fallacy is that your SEO strategy must be revised with each new update. Sullivan, however, disagrees with this point. He believes that if you notice a difference following the launch of one of these systems or an updated version, it might indicate that your alignment with Google’s intended goals isn’t as strong as it should be in relation to what these systems and Google are aiming for.

On question how SEO specialists might respond to Google being more translucent, Sullivan made a joke about some of them trying to manipulate things for higher rankings.

Putting jokes aside, he clarified that using the guidelines is the goal for creating better and more helpful content, which will sort out the potential issues.

Google Answers If Noindex Is Acceptable For Changing Sitelinks

John Mueller from Google responded to a Reddit query regarding whether it’s OK to no-index a webpage in order to prevent it from appearing in sitelinks.

Sitelinks, which are grouped links from one domain in the search results, are often displayed when someone types in the name or URL of a website.

Because a noindex meta tag is a command, search engines are required to abide by the request.

When a webpage has a meta noindex element, search engines are compelled to remove it from their index.

Google explicitly advises taking this strategy, using a noindex to remove a page from the sitelinks.

Google Gives Explanations on Why a Site Doesn’t Rank Despite Good SEO

John Mueller from Google provided an explanation for why a website with “good SEO” doesn’t rank even when there is little competition. Although his response first appears contentious, it is important to pay attention to what he says.

Firstly, there is no universally accepted definition of what “good” SEO is since people’s perceptions of SEO vary depending on where they learned it and how long they have been using it.

Depending on the expertise, knowledge, and competence of the individual making that judgment, “good” SEO might imply different things.

Until failure makes a knowledge gap obvious, it is difficult to be aware of what one does not know. That is one way of interpreting the query that John Mueller responded to. His assumption is that the person asking for a question is probably knowledgeable.

John Mueller responded by first pointing out the flaw in Google’s SEO guidance.

He claims that Google’s recommendations frequently focus more on the technical aspects of SEO, such as structured data, page speed, and content quality, and less on site marketing.

Mueller then focused on the aspect of site marketing that Google doesn’t truly discuss.

The fact that a site can’t rank highly for low-competition keywords, however, may indicate that there is still some SEO to be learned.

Don’t assume you already understand SEO; instead, have an open mind about it. It might be surprising to find knowledge gaps in an industry that has been nuanced for more than 20 years like SEO.