Google updates, winners and losers

Google announces broad core updates and spam updates. KeptSEO knows the confirmed ones and marks them on your Overview chart as soft shaded bands with the update’s name, so you can see whether a change in clicks lines up with one.

The Google updates tab goes one step further. Pick an update and you see which queries and which pages gained or lost the most clicks, and how your site total changed.

• Before and after. We compare the 14 days before the update started with the 14 days after it finished. The days while it was rolling out are left out, because rankings move during a rollout. Choose 7, 14 or 28 days at the top.
• Winners and losers. A query or page is a winner when it gained at least 3 clicks between the two windows, and a loser when it lost at least 3. Each side lists the 25 biggest movers with their clicks before, after and the change; click one to open its detail view. A query that did not exist before counts from zero, and one that disappeared counts down to zero.
• A recent update. If fewer days have passed since the update ended than you asked for, both windows shrink to the days available so the comparison stays fair, and the page says so. If no day after the update has been recorded yet, you are told to check back.
• Dates. Each update links to Google’s own Search Status Dashboard. Start and end dates come from there; the end is the start plus Google’s stated duration, so it can differ from Google’s wording by a day.
• History. Only updates inside the history we hold for your site are listed. On Free, an update whose “before” window is older than the 16 months Free shows is not available.

Plans. The bands on the chart are for everyone. The Google updates tab with winners and losers is part of Pro; Free sees a notice with a link to plans.