On December 3rd, 2020 Google’s new algorithm update rolled out, a global core update that is released every few months by the tech giant. Although the strongest impact has been seen on the 4th of December, it might take 1 to 2 weeks for the update to fully take effect.
Here, at GA Agency, we are also keeping an eye on the update and monitoring its impact on our clients’ rankings. As we learn more, we will write about our main findings in our blog and keep you posted. Here to follow the initial findings…
As of now, the most impacted websites are within the US, while other countries have only reported small changes.
On the 4th of December, a score of 9.4 out of 10 on SEMRush’s volatility scale was registered, an extremely high score indicating high chances of fluctuation in websites’ rankings.
The December 2020 core update is defined by us at GA Agency as substantial, with an even bigger impact expected than the May 2020 one. The biggest changes compared to the May results have been in Google’s Top 3 and Top 10 results, as can be seen from the graph below:
(retrieved from RankRanger)
By regularly updating its algorithm, Google aims at improving users’ search experience by ensuring that high-quality content is provided. With the new Google core update, the SERP ranking of websites has been reconsidered based on the E–A-T aspects, namely expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. This might consequently cause a drop or rise in your ranking position.
You can read more about how the new Google core update compares to Google’s May 2020 core update in our previous blog post.
What Has the Impact Been Like so Far?
Google decided to release the new core update right after the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, but right before the Christmas holidays. This choice might negatively impact certain businesses, which have been penalized by the update and have seen their Google SEO ranking drop. The main industries affected by the update so far are those of health and medicine (which saw an important drop in their rankings), music, law and government, jobs and education as well as real estate and finance.
You can find an overview of each category’s SEMRush’s volatility score in the table below:
(retrieved from SearchEngineLand)
Examples of websites that saw significant growth and were favored by the updates are zoominfo.com and linkedin.com. On the other hand, pages penalized by Google’s core update are urbandictionary.com and aliexpress.com.
We are monitoring the situation and will keep sharing more information about what has changed in our blog. Keep following us to read more about this Google December 2020 Algorithm change.
