The latest update to the core Google algorithm began rolling out this month, and has been classified as a “broad” update. In effect, broad updates mean that Google has no actionable advice for website or content owners, and that there is nothing they need to do in order to “fix” any perceived changes.
Google notifies content owners about these, specifically to contrast them to more focused updates, such as the Speed Update, for example. Focused updates usually include possible actionable recommendations that owners can take in order to ensure that their sites are in line with whatever Google is looking for, like load times in the Speed Update.
Search Relevance & Understanding Queries
Broad updates are released in order to improve search relevance, and not to target specific things, like low quality content, site speed, mobile friendliness, etc.
The objective here (and Google’s big picture objective as well) is for the search engine to understand the query, and the context of the content which it is considering returning as a result of that query.
With Google moving steadily toward a greater AI role in its search etc. this question of context is always a critical one. The better the search engine can understand you, the more relevant the results will be which are returned.
