Scenario 2: Algorithm Update Reaction
Google has rolled out a core algorithm update affecting how structured data and page experience signals influence rankings. You see a sudden spike in support tickets and a drop in plugin user engagement.
Question
Describe how you would investigate and respond to this situation. What stakeholders would you involve? What steps would you take in the short term vs. long term?
Investigation
In order to fully assess the situation, we need to do some investigation to fully understand the problem.
For instance, I would be highly suspicious of a correlation between a Google update and a sudden drop in user engagement. If anything, I would expect more engagement as users rush to improve the quality of their pages to reflect the changes from the update. This could suggest that there is something wrong technically with the plugin.
Support tickets
The first thing to do is read & analyse the support tickets. For any kind of user research I like to use AI to support me (including using meeting transcripts and AI notetakers to summarise and generate key takeaways). In this case I would feed the support tickets in and use it to help me find the collective issues. If they are related to the algorithm update, we’d need to delve into it further.
I would also jump to reading the reviews in the WordPress plugin directory, as this may give even more insight. I’d also want to check our ratings were not being impacted as this would escalate the time to resolution.
For the purposes of this example, we will assume they are related.
Product analytics
Reviewing my product analytics data would help narrow down where the drops in user engagement are happening. This helps to localise the issues and then allow us to try and replicate them.
Learn about the algorithm update
Understanding the impact of the algorithm update from known and trusted sources, including Google itself, is imperative.
I would also work with in-house experts to get their opinion on the situation. Since I’m not an expert in SEO, it’s important to work with team members who do. Together, we can work through any issues identified and work out which are the priorities to fix.
Engage with stakeholders
Host a meeting with the engineers and SEO expert to share our collective learnings. A meeting with all stakeholders enables greater interaction and diversity of information. This should lead to faster resolution. The outcome of this should be an action plan of next steps.
Summary
Once we have completed this part, we will understand if the problem was caused internally or externally, e.g. did we release a feature that caused detrimental SEO impact, such as an incorrectly formatted schema or meant that meta tags didn’t render properly/at all.
- We should understand if there is anything we are currently doing in the app, suggesting or recommending having a detrimental effect that would contribute towards lower rankings?
- Are we incorrectly reporting anything to our users or to ourselves (failing tracking / data sync etc)?
- Are there any actions we should take immediately – information or quick-wins that require little to no development?
Short term resolution
Educate & communicate
Containing the problem is the most important first step. Acknowledge there is a problem and share any tips to fix it that mean a plugin update is not required.
- Publish a blog post and share on socials and via email for all users we have an email address for.
Fixing and resolving
- Appoint a lead engineer and create a small working group and run a 3 amigos session to work out how we might start to resolve the issue. Understand the scale of the impact.
- Undertake discovery work and create spikes as required. Escalate the process if fast changes are needed.
- Keep updating our internal stakeholders on progress to resolve the issue(s).
Long term resolution
Get ahead of the curve
Here are some proactive changes that I would put in place to reduce the likelihood of users having to notice the problem before we do.
- Set up monitoring to measure drastic changes in metrics
For my current team we have Adobe and Datadog alerts to detect metrics changes so we can take action sooner. I would focus on 2 or 3 key metrics such as daily user engagement and plugin activation. - Create a focus group with some engaged users
Dig in deeper with these users. Check in with them regularly, have access to their analytics, search console etc so that we’re able to see the problems first-hand with real-life examples. - Educate customers on algorithm updates
Help our users understand what happens during an algorithm update, share information such as cadence, explain that some changes may be temporary.
Improve processes
- Tighten QA
If this was caused by a technical issue in the plugin, we need to have more rigourous checking. Working with an EM or CTO to iron out any gaps in the process to support this. - Beta testing
This should help identify any potential bugs that may get overlooked outside of real-life testing and will help us get user feedback about if users are experiencing any issues that mean they’re unable to get to their desired outcome. - Status updates page within the RankMath plugin
Using an RSS feed in the page to help more RankMath users be alerted to news from the blog including problems - Subscribe to trusted sources for future algorithm updates
The Google Search status summary pages has an RSS feed, but it’s also worth subscribing to more resources that go into detail about the changes and effects of any algorithm rollout.