Google

December 2024 Core Update

On 12th December, Google announced an early Christmas present for us all – the roll out of yet another core algorithm update, just one week after the last update was completed.

Google is implying this update is impacting a different system than the previous November 2024 Core Update, as they ‘have different systems that are considered core to our ranking process; this month’s core update involves an improvement to a different core system than last month.’.

This is the same reasoning they gave in 2023 for releasing the October and November Core Updates so close together.

We have no further information on the new update at this point, but Google said it should take around two weeks to complete. We’ll provide further details once the update is complete.

Expert opinion

Ben Carter, SEO Account Manager at Embryo

"The December 2024 Google Core Update has now been rolled out. Starting on the 12th December 2024 it lasted around 5 days finishing on the 18th December. This update was a typical core update where Google updated its core ranking system to make search results more relevant and helpful to the user rewarding original and high-quality material that provides value to the users. Websites with unoriginal or low-quality content may have experienced declines. Coming quickly after the November Core Update it may have come as a surprise that there was a second core update so soon however Google stated 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. We noticed the update touched down pretty quickly after just a couple of days of being launched we saw third-party tracking tools see big spikes indicating the volatility within the SERP following this update."

Commentary: Content Updates Going into 2025

Our resident content expert, Shona Worsman, recently created an internal content manifesto for the business, and here are a few highlights.

Content Marketing/Digital PR-Style Pieces

We have seen a prioritisation of user-focused content that also is very suitable for outreach. Content that has stats-based features, innovative angles, and content that is designed particularly well is where we are seeing improvement of efficacy. Content that can be simultaneously used for a web page or blog post, and also for digital PR outreach is going to be important in 2025 and beyond.

Content Repurposing

While many talk about it, very few actually repurpose content to any great degree. 2025 may just be a big year for ‘create once, use thrice’, especially in short-form video terms. Social media teams working closely with internal or external SEO/content teams becomes increasingly important as time passes.

E-E-A-T

This is more important than ever. Less and less content that is merely a ‘flat page of words’ is ranking well. It is therefore of great importance that content teams, and those responsible for the design of pages of a website work closely together. Time-poor marketing managers that say to internal or external teams, “just upload the text and we will sort it later” will find things getting tougher and tougher. Google is very good these days at assessing effort. And effort can be shown in terms of not only what and how content is written, but also how it is displayed.

Thoughtful e-commerce Informational Content

Again, ‘effort per page’ (a term that we at Embryo have coined ourselves) is increasingly important for e-commerce websites. Who wants to look at an ‘SQL query’ that merely lists all of the products of a particular category on a page? Users want interwoven content around products and categories. And Google rewards this accordingly. This became significant in August 2023, and every increasingly so since.

(Some) Forums are back, baby!

Reddit’s influence in the SERPS continues to skyrocket. Why shouldn’t it? Many millions of hours of content resides on the site, and if Google can filter it correctly, it becomes incredibly valuable to searchers during the ‘messy middle’. Many businesses (not just trilby-wearing keyboard warriors) are spending more and more time cultivating accounts. Another option for repurposing of content.

Visual Long-form Content

Long-form content continues to reign – despite many an SEO saying otherwise – but long-form content that contains (original) imagery, embedded YouTube videos, infographics, and more will always rank better. Google wants to see ‘crafted and curated’ content that looks like a lot of effort has gone into it.

Summary

Like many things with Google – a lot has changed, but really it still is the same way to do things – it’s just that Google has got better at determining what is great content that has taken great effort to achieve.

Google’s AI sales assistant seen in the wild

During Brodie Clark’s excellent monitoring of SERP changes, he has seen that Google is testing an AI Sales Assistant on branded organic sitelinks. You can then ask questions that then shows you appropriate pages on the site.

The feature seemingly uses a combination of AI, but importantly, on-page content to deliver its results.

Google told to sell Chrome by US DoJ

The BBC writes that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has demanded Google sell Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser.

It continues, “It is one of a series of remedies proposed by the DOJ in a court filing late on Wednesday aimed at stopping the tech giant from maintaining its monopoly in online search.”

Expert Opinion

James Welch, Chief Innovation Officer, Embryo

"If Google is indeed forced to sell Chrome by the US DoJ it could lead to a loss of search engine dominance as Chrome ran by other companies could use other search engines such as Bing or DuckDuckGo…which would obviously be a mistake for the consumer, as those search engines are still way behind in terms of quality results. I’d imagine that Google/Alphabet then may be ‘for the taking’ once Chrome was out of their control, and other products and services may go the same route. Both of these would of course affect revenues, of which 80% are from ads still in 2024. And while competition is good in any market, I’d argue that because of the difference in quality between Google search and others, this would be a rare case when competition wouldn’t benefit the consumer - not for a long time if at all."

November 2024 Core Update

On November 11th, Google announced that their latest algorithm update rollout had commenced. This has come as no surprise as there’s been a lot of chatter in the industry, throughout October as SERPs have been extremely volatile.

We expect this rollout to take up to 2 weeks and we will provide further insight once confirmed this has been completed.

Ben Goodey, Founder of Spicy Margarita SEO Growth Agency told us:

Expert Opinion

Ben Goodey, Founder of Spicy Margarita

"The November 2024 Google Core Update has stirred up the SEO world yet again, marking the fifth major update this year—a volatile year for SEOs. Early signals suggest no major changes for Reddit, which had significant gains earlier in the year, but some sites, like Forbes Advisor, saw dramatic traffic drops (which we all think points to manual penalties for 'parasite SEO'). Other sites, such as Jake-Jorgovan.com and Intelligent.com, also took major hits, it's early to tell but my immediate hunch is that Google has targeted unclear or missing labeling of sponsored content—a reminder that failing to use rel='sponsored' for advertised/paid links is a risk. For most sites, minor ranking drops in this time isn’t cause for huge alarm. If you only drop a couple of rankings, don't worry. Pay attention to the pages that saw major positions drops as those are likely actually hit and have things Google's algorithm has flagged"

More info on the update can be found here.

Ongoing Issue With Rankings in Google Search

On 15th August 2024, Google announced that they were experiencing ongoing issues with their rankings in Google Search, which is currently affecting a large number of websites.

The root cause was determined quickly and we were informed that an update will be released within 12 hours to address the issue.

It’s rare form for Google to be so forthcoming with issues in their Search Results, and we’re keen to hear the outcome and what caused the issue in the first place.

August 2024 Core Update

On the 15th of August 2024, Google finally released the latest core update, which was expected by many in the SEO community after numerous reports of high volatility in the SERPs across multiple industries.

This update is expected to take around a month to fully roll out.

But what makes this update different? This core update will be taking into account all the feedback that Google has received since the September 2023 helpful content update which has had a negative impact on performance for those smaller websites across Google’s index.

This latest algorithm update has been specifically designed to improve the quality of the SERP, ensuring more relevant content is shown to people which has actually been designed and curated to be helpful for the user rather than based on content that has just been created to perform well in the rankings.

James Taylor,  independent SEO consultant and the founder of Complete White Label tells us his thoughts:

Expert Opinion

James Taylor, Founder at Complete White Label

"Looking back, I think we've seen a lot of reputable publishers being unfairly hit by the August core update, or at least, sites like Reddit and Quora being viewed favourably above independent publishers. Does that mean that Google got things wrong? It's a tough question to answer because, in many ways, blogging had to evolve away from content made for SEO purposes alone, and it's a big part of what has resulted in the explosion of UGC results we see today in the SERP's. This approach also unfortunately meant that many publishers who did everything 'by the book' were still handed a significant visibility reduction, with many still not seeing recovery as we near the end of 2024 at the time of writing. Really I think the updates show that, even as SEO's, we can't create content in a vacuum. We have to consider strategies for broader brand building and the role of SEO within that, rather than an all-in approach to SEO alone. For example, having social media strategies in place, utilising video to support blog content and provide traffic opportunities via YouTube, TikTok and Instagram Reels. And, even current approaches to link building in terms of where they sit within what a 'real' brand would do (such as the role of digital PR and expert commentary rather than relying on private blog networks or link farms as a means of link acquisition)."

Google Drops Continuous Scroll in Search Results

In October 2021, Google launched “Continuous Scroll” on mobile search. This introduced a SERP that revealed more listings as the user “scrolled” down the page. In December 2022, Continuous Scroll was rolled out on Desktop search results.

As of 25th June 2024, Google removed this feature for Desktop, bringing back the pagination system that was in place before, which includes a “Next” button at the bottom of the page.

Mobile SERPs will have the Continuous Scroll function removed in the coming months.

So, what does this mean? Click-through rates from the SERP will likely be more contained to page 1 results, as users now have to take an extra “step” to visit page 2. Also, SEOs can now say “we got that keyword on to page 1!” again, instead of “we got that keyword in to positions 1-10!”

It’s the small wins.

June 2024 Spam Update

On 20th June 2024, after originally teasing that it would happen in May 2024, Google announced that they are rolling out the June 2024 Spam Update.

This is the “Core” element of the Spam update that had been previously announced in March 2024.

The update is focused on rewarding websites with good quality backlink profiles, and actively penalising websites that use spammy practices.

Google’s New “Web” Filter

On Tuesday 14th May 2024, Google announced a new “Web” filter that shows only text-based links in the Search Results.

This filter appears at the top of the results page, alongside other filters as part of the “More” option that already exists.

We think this will bring some interesting insights on how people prefer to interact with the SERP. Will there be a demographic shift? Will certain industries opt for the “Simple” results over the “Rich” results? Only time will tell.

AI Summaries Rolling Out Across The US

Google has revealed at its I/O developer conference on Tuesday 14th May a significant shift in the way the search engine will look and feel, centred around AI integration.

The update includes the introduction of “AI Overviews”, formerly known as Search Generative Experience (SGE). This new feature, which is powered by Google’s own AI tool, Gemini, will generate summaries at the top of the search results based on understanding queries and content found from various relevant topics across Google’s index.

The rollout will initially be for the US only, with the possibility of being rolled out to billions more users in other countries by the end of the year.

AI overviews are expected to generate a higher click through rate than the standard organic search listings that we have grown familiar with over the years, but interestingly, Google will not yet present the breakdown of data for clicks and impressions in Google Search Console for AI overview links.

The March 2024 Core Update Concludes – 45 Days Later…

On March 5th 2024, Google announced that it was rolling out the March 2024 Core Update, which had a focus on poor quality content and websites that abuse content scaling. Google said this would likely take 4-6 weeks to conclude rolling out.

50 days passed by and the SEO community believed this update was still rolling out and set to be one of the longest roll-outs in history (the longest being the Page Experience update in June 2021 which took 79 days!)

However, on April 26th 2024, Google confirmed that the update had concluding rolling out on April 19th – 7 days prior to this announcement.

It’s unclear why Google had decided to delay the announcement, but we can all breathe a sigh of relief knowing it’s over… For now!

Google Adds Social Media Posts to Business Listings

It has been announced that after adding social media profile icon links to Google My Business listings, Google will be introducing a new social media posts section within business listings in Search!

Google Business profiles will now have a subsection for social media updates that will be automatically populated with the latest social posts once the accounts are linked up. You can link up your Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn and TikTok accounts.

Image Source: Search Engine Journal

Although most accounts will need to connect up the social profiles with the GMB, Google has said that they may automatically link social accounts in some cases.

This is a really interesting update as it adds more importance to the need for up-to-date social media accounts. If a business has poor social media, it’ll look bad pulling through in the SERP. If a business doesn’t link up its social media or any channels, it’ll look poor vs. competitors who do.

Let’s keep an eye on how the integration of social media and search progresses as this update rolls out!

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) Replaces First Input Delay (FID) as a Core Web Vital

On 12th March 2024, Google officially replaced First Input Delay (FID) with Interaction to Next Paint (INP) as a Core Web Vital metric and will be used moving forward to assess the Page Experience on your website.

The key difference between FID and INP is that INP measures interactions beyond the user’s first input. This gives us a much more accurate representation of User Experience, as we’re now able to measure how quickly a user can navigate from page to page.

This won’t be a groundbreaking update that will shake up rankings significantly – but if you’re not scoring “Good” across your Core Web Vital metrics, we’d recommend that you consider it as part of your strategy.

March 2024 Core Update and New Spam Policies

On 5th March 2024, Google began rolling out their March 2024 Core Update along with new policies regarding spam.

Unlike other Core updates, this came with a lot of detail from Google on what the update will be targeting.

Overall, the update is designed to improve the quality of Search by showing less content that feels like it was made to attract clicks, rather than demonstrating a sincere interest in your users’ needs.

The Spam Policy updates aim to better handle the practises that can negatively impact the quality of Google’s search results.

A full write-up from Google Search Central’s blog can be found below.

Google Reviews Update – November 2023

Starting on the 8th November 2023, and finishing on the 7th December 2023, this will be the last time that Google confirms an update to the reviews algorithm.

What is now likely to be a realtime system, due to the ever-increasing deluge of fake reviews across sites thanks to services such as ChatGPT, all publishers of sites with reviews should keep their eyes open for increased levels of seemingly natural reviews.

It is going to be tough for publishers to know if Google’s review algorithm is rewarding or punishing them. The only way to be entirely safe is to give enough internal resource time to ensuring that any added reviews are as genuine as possible.

There is almost certainly going to be many sites that have been using fake reviews with ranking headaches over the next few weeks.

November 2023 Core Update

The November Core Update started to roll out on the 2nd November and concluded on the 28th, only a few weeks after the October Core Update.

During this period and like in many other updates, many sites saw volatility in their keyword rankings. But in the early stages of the roll-out, many other SEOs noticed the impact quickly, which implies that there were significant changes being made at the time.

Like with many Google Core Updates, there aren’t clear actions to take for recovery, but as always it’s important to monitor which areas of your website were impacted to review whether any further action is required.

Interestingly, Google released another update during this period, with the Google 2023 reviews update beginning to roll out on the 8th November – meaning two updates overlapped with each other.

October 2023 Core Update

This Core Update marked Google’s 3rd broad core algorithm update of 2023, rolling out just 1 day after the Spam Update.

This update began rolling out on October 5th 2023 and concluded 2 weeks later. Due to the overlapping of this update with the Link Spam Update, it was difficult to identify its individual impact.

In usual form, Google declined to provide any specifics about the update and encourages users to follow best practices.

October 2023 Spam Update

On October 4th 2023, Google announced that they were rolling out a Spam Update to their algorithm, which concluded its rollout after 2 weeks.

This update improved spam detection, largely in non-English-speaking markets, which resulted in many spammy websites losing Organic visibility.

However, this update preceded the October 2023 Core Update which began rolling out the following day, so measuring the impact was challenging.

September 2023 Helpful Content Update

This update officially marked the third “Helpful Content” update that Google has ever rolled out, however it was the first of 2023.

The Helpful Content Update rolled out over 13 days and rewarded websites that Google deemed to have “Helpful Content” for their users.

This update impacted rankings more significantly than the previous two, which is theorised to be due to the rise in AI content.