December was a busy Google update month, as both a core and a spam algorithm change took place.
The core update started on December 12 and the rollout finished in about a week. It was the fourth core update of 2024, aimed at once again refining ranking factors to give the search engine users better and more relevant results. An official X Google statement suggests that the latest core update targets search engine results in a way that differs from what a core update did just one month earlier.
The Dec. 2024 core update is rolling out, and we expect it will complete in two weeks.
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 12, 2024
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: https://t.co/N5p3KsJyiI
As per a Google Q & A for developers, different systems are considered key to the search engine’s ranking processes. Each one of the four core updates rolled out in 2024 targets specific processes but at the same time, Google hasn’t provided a lot of useful information on how to recover if your website is hit.
Additionally, a spam update was announced and its rollout was completed on December 26.
It was the last one in a series of rather aggressive anti-spam measures that Google announced and completed throughout the year. Google changed its approach towards spam detection significantly by modifying policies about site reputation abuse, expired domain abuse, and scaled content abuse.
What is known about the latest updates is that some websites previously hit hard by Google new measures have managed to at least partially recover. Also, the number of SEO professionals and webmasters reporting negative effects has been low. Learn how these changes impact rankings and site recovery. Check out more past Google updates.
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