After the previous core update in November 2024, Google began the December 2024 update and have noted it will be complete in two weeks.

This was announced on 12th December therefore was expected to end just after Christmas, however they are now reporting this is complete as of 18th December.

Google announced the news just after the November core update had just finished rolling out.

On X, Google posted:

“The Dec 2024 core update is rolling out, and we expect it will complete in two weeks.”

“If you’re wondering why there’s a core update this month after one last month, we have different core systems we’re always improving. This past blog post explains more: ”

Google’s post links to a blog post on Google’s measures of algorithm updates: “A Q&A on Google Search updates” from November 2023. 

Google Ranking Systems

According to Google, they utilise ‘multiple ranking systems that do different things’ and Google continuously seeks ways to improve these systems for better results to be shown.

“Notable” updates that the company believes could result in noticeable changes in search results are typically shared, the company said.

Guidance for Websites

The exact specifics behind the core updates and exact changes are not publicly shared and therefore not common knowledge. Google’s advice however, is to create reliable, helpful, people-first content.

In the blog post Google suggests three things to keep in mind when making changes to your website:

• Avoid doing “quick fix” changes. For example removing certain page elements because you heard this was a negative for SEO. Instead, you should aim to make sustainable changes in the long term and changes which are better for your users.
• Consider how you can improve your content in meaningful ways. For example, you could re-structure or re-write your content which makes navigating and user experience easier. 
• Re-working content. If you have a plethora of content on site with little to no traction, consider condensing pages to build out less pages of content but more informative and useful content, clearly designed for the user and not search engines.

Verde’s thoughts:

For now, we recommend to not panic. If you are monitoring site performance and your site is following a correctly implemented SEO strategy, you should see positive long term results. If your website’s keyword ranking has dropped, we wouldn’t recommend making knee-jerk reactions if you know you are continuing to try and best serve users based on related search queries.

Core algorithm updates usually take a couple of weeks to roll out, however we have seen for some clients ripple-effects can last for a month-or-so after. So continue to monitor and keep an eye on performance.

If you feel like there is a reason your site is being “penalised”, and there is something you can improve, for example you have a myriad of content talking about the same thing, perhaps looking at how you can improve it so that the content you are creating is better served for the user, and not there to manipulate search engines.

For a few clients we are seeing megabrands like Amazon see initial uplift, similar to what we have seen before, however over time this has “evened-out” over time. If you are seeing similar, then use tools such as Semrush to see what competitors are seeing uplift in this update. Post-update, there may be learnings you can take to improve your own SEO strategy.

If you need help with your SEO strategy, or perhaps aren’t performing where you want to be post-update, drop us a message on [email protected].